


The Smuggler and the Scavenger

by kyoloren



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Ben is a gentleman and Rey is thirsty AF, Canon Rewrite, Dress Up, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Rey off desert planets!, Happy Ending, Meeting the Parents, Smuggler Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 49,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22131535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyoloren/pseuds/kyoloren
Summary: When Ben Solo accidentally loses the Millennium Falcon in a bet, he has to travel to the backwater Inner Rim planet of Jakku to try to get it back. While there, he meets a young scavenger named Rey who just so happens to be in possession of the droid his mother has been looking for…shenanigans commence, such as stealing the Falcon, a shoot-out with a pirate gang, and finding out that Rey is Force Sensitive.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 49
Kudos: 229





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> I was in some desperate need for some cute fluff and so I decided to change canon completely. Ben Solo has never been a Force user and he grew up with the unconditional love of his parents. A new generation of Jedi are being taught. Rey isn't some daughter of the Sith. 
> 
> There's mostly fluff and these two fools falling in love, with a hint of angst.
> 
> I think I'll definitely be writing a part two!

(moodboard by @driversputa on twitter!)

* * *

The cargo hauler groaned riotously as if struggling to stay together as it chugged its way through space. Heavy footsteps followed by the banging on a heavy metal door woke him. He jerked on the thin mattress and groaned as his head felt like it was about to split open. Making a face at the taste of his mouth, he hauled himself to his feet.

"Ben!" the gruff voice came through the door.

Stumbling as the room shifted around him, Ben Solo made his way to the door and he opened it from the inside. "Yeah?" he mumbled out, eyes barely open.

If he had his eyes open, he would have seen the calm before the storm brewing on his father's face. "Where's the _Falcon_?"

Ben squinted, blinked, frowned. The words didn't make any sense.

"My ship, son, where is it?" Han pressed. Han only ever called it "his" ship when he was mad at Ben.

Ben ran a hand over his face and rubbed his eyes. "In the hangar where it always is," he got out, waving his other hand.

Han frowned, gripped Ben's shirt sleeve and tugged him out of his chambers. "I'll show you where it is," Han said, pulling his stumbling, hungover son through the freighter's corridors to the hangar bay.

The hangar bay was currently empty of any ship resembling the _Falcon_. In its place sat a shuttle that looked like it came from the war; scorched, dented, barely serviceable.

Han stood there, hands on hips as Ben took a couple steps into the messy hanger.

"It…" Ben waved at the space where the ship usually sat when it wasn't doing the procuring of their semi-illegal job. He twisted around—trying not to wobble—and faced Han. "Dad…"

Han raised his eyebrows, waiting to hear what Ben had to say.

Ben rubbed his face again, trying to sort through the sluggishness settled on his mind. And then it hit him. A curse slipped from between his lips and his hands fell to his sides in defeat. "I lost it."

"Lost it? How do you _lose_ a ship, Ben?" There wasn't much fury in Han's voice, though there was a hint of disappointment and a smidge of amusement hidden by the old smuggler's usual gruff nature.

The younger Solo straightened his back and willed away the pain behind his eyes. "Remember when you and Mom sat me down and told me how games and strategy weren't my strong suit?"

Han sighed. "You gambled away my ship?"

"Just a little bit," Ben said sheepishly, raising a hand and holding his index finger and thumb an inch apart.

Han let his head fall back and he muttered something to the ceiling, to the stars, to the cosmos. "I need a vacation." He rubbed the back of his neck and walked over to his son. He put his hand on Ben's shoulder and looked him in the eye. "Here's what you're gonna do…you're gonna take that sad excuse for a shuttle and find my ship. And you're gonna get it back. I don't care how you do it, but I'm not gonna lose the _Falcon_."

Ben knew how much the ship meant to his father; hell, it meant a lot to him too. "Okay," Ben said slowly. "And what're you gonna do?"

Han stepped back and rolled his shoulders. "I'm going to see your mother. Take a much needed break from," he waved a hand, "all this."

Ben wasn't blind to the fact that his father wasn't getting any younger. "As in, you're retiring?" he offered up.

Han pointed a finger at him. "No. Don't put words in my mouth, son." He paused to ruffle Ben's hair like he was ten years old again. It would have been endearing if it didn't make Ben's head thump and pound. "Now get my ship."

"Yes, sir," Ben said as Han walked his way back into the bowels of the hauler. Alone in the hangar, the younger Solo mimicked his father and put his hands on his hips, looking out across the cluttered bay. He willed the _Falcon_ to appear and after a few minutes, when the hangar was just as empty as before, he cursed, turned on his heel and headed back to his bunk to get ready.

Two cups of caf later, Ben strapped on his blaster holster and walked back into the corridor and right into Chewbacca. The Wookiee gargled out a sentence about Han just leaving. They always had a number of serviceable ships on the freighter's bow hangar since the _Falcon_ was so recognizable.

"You're staying here?" Ben asked, walking toward the aft hangar where the dilapidated shuttle sat.

"Ggguuurghhh," Chewie said.

"Good, you can hold down the ship." Ben checked his blaster and strapped it into the holster. Chewbacca said something else. "I'm getting the _Falcon_ back."

"Grrghh."

"I don't need luck!" Ben said, his voice echoing in the hangar as he stepped into it. Chewie paused in the doorway. "I just gotta find it first," he muttered to himself.

The Wookiee farther poked the wound by saying that Ben had lost it by being…it was a word somewhere between stupid and drunk.

Ben twisted around to mockingly glare at the big hairy beast. "Yeah, yeah. No need to rub it in, Chewie."

_The shuttle would be good for one thing at least,_ Ben thought, as Chewie left the hangar and he got inside the thing. It would have a record of where he'd come from and he could trace his steps backward from there.

"Okay," he said, settling into the pilot's seat and flicking switches and pushing buttons for ignition. It was a clunker, and wouldn't get him far, but he was near a number of planets in a system he couldn't remember the name for so the _Falcon_ couldn't have gotten too far.

* * *

He was very, very wrong.

Ben made it to the cantina he'd lost the _Falcon_ at on the planet Ogem. Once there, he'd remembered the name of the cad who'd swindled the ship out from under him: a man called Ducain. The Besalisk bartender burst his bubble of hoping of finding Ducain, saying the man had immediately went and sold it off to the three Irving Boys, who ran a parts ring in the system.

Running a hand over his face in exasperation, Ben leaned against the bar and paid for a drink. Nothing too strong, just enough to pay the Besalisk for its efforts. "And do y'know where I can find these…Irving Boys?"

Two of the Besalisk's arms crossed while the other two cleaned a spotty looking tankard. "Maybe." He glanced at the pocket where Ben had pulled his three credits for the drink.

Rather than cause more trouble, even though he was itching for it, mildly irritated that this wasn't going to be a quick fix, Ben slid a couple more credits across and sipped the drink. It tasted watered down and awful, but he swallowed it anyway.

"The Irving Boys do a lot of dealings with a junk dealer called Unkar Plutt. May-a sold it to him to get outta some debt."

Ben sighed in relief. That was a lead he could work with. "Thanks," he said, tapping the bartop and walking out into the sunlight. It was stuffy and there were massive trees reaching toward the sky close to the town.

Making his way toward his shuttle, Ben could only hope that the _Falcon_ would be with this Unkar Plutt. Though the fact that he was a junk dealer rubbed Ben the wrong way; it was really only him or his father who could get away with calling the ship a piece of junk. It was part of her charm and honestly she was the hardiest ship the Solo's had ever gotten their hands on.

Back in the actual junk shuttle, Ben plugged in the name Unkar Plutt on his personal link to the black market HoloNet; as a smuggler, he worked with some pretty off color beings and he'd found some of his best jobs from sniffing around perspective clients from the black net.

Unkar Plutt was definitely small time but he showed up all right, with his base of operations being on the desert planet of Jakku. It was a short distance away but would need a hyperdrive so he did a system's check. The shuttle had a hyperdrive, though whether or not it worked was up for debate. He waited for the check to come through and muttered something about astromech.

His dad didn't believe in droids on the _Falcon_ at least not as pilots, and rarely carried any for repairs, preferring to do things by hand.

However, rather than potentially dying in a fiery ball of a ship, Ben took the shuttle back up to the freighter. One argument with Chewie later and the whole hauler jumped to the Jakku system.

"Yeah, yeah," Ben said, Chewbacca's growls following him out of the bridge. "Dad can yell at me later. But he wants his ship so I'm getting his ship!"

An hour later, he was down on Jakku. It was a desolate, desert planet, which seemed to contradict Unkar Plutt's species' homeworld, which was covered in saltwater. There wasn't much there. A handful of towns. He'd chosen at random, Cratertown, which had fewer buildings than he was expecting.

But, as per every town, there was a cantina which was always the best place to find out information. Planetside, it was mid-day and Ben got himself some chewy, questionable food and a gritty drink before he started asking questions.

It took about forty-three seconds before someone tried to hit him. Ben narrowly dodged the punch from someone he assumed to be a very drunk Irving brother and barely broke a sweat backhanding the fool and introducing his head to the hard edge of the table.

A blaster or two trained on him, Ben stepped away from the groaning man on the floor and raised his hands away from the vicinity of his blaster. "Okay…that got out of hand, wouldn't you say?" He flashed a smile. "All I want to know is where to find Unkar Plutt. Got some business with him. He's a businessman right?"

It took longer than expected for a voice to pop up, thin and reedy, and said simply, "Find the junker at Niima Outpost."

"Thanks," Ben said, inclining his head and backing out of the building before putting his hands down. He hurried to his shuttle and headed toward the outpost. Once he landed outside of the ramshackle bunch of tents, Ben stepped out. "So much sand," he grumbled, shaking off his boots and pulling off his black jacket. It was hot as lava and he didn't need it.

It didn't take him long to find the junk dealer. He'd already spotted the _Falcon_ parked and grounded not far from the sturdy counter behind which Plutt worked. There were a number of people in line, wearing robes and looking a little worse for wear. Ben stood in his place, watching with growing distaste as the bulbous junk dealer took scrap and offered measly portions of food in return. He guessed that unless you liked to hunt sandworms, you had to get your food off world.

He tried not to think about the fact that he had definitely been served cooked sandworm meat at Ergle's Bar. Swallowing hard, he finally made it to the counter.

"Hello," he said, trying to start off on a good footing.

Plutt squinted his beady eyes at the newcomer. "Who're you? Don't recognize your face. I know everyone here."

_Lord over everyone here_ , Ben thought. "I was interested in that ship. The one you got off the Irving Boys."

Plutt's meaty hand clenched and he hit it against the counter. "Not for sale."

Ben sighed. "Are you sure? I mean, you've got a bunch of ships out there. That one's not worth the cost of upkeep."

"Hmmmm…and you know that how? Hmm?" Plutt grabbed a radio and held it in his hand like a warning.

Okay, not a great start.

"Hey," a voice said from behind him. Ben twisted around and looked down. Standing there in a patched together sandy colored outfit was a young woman. Her face was covered in what was either dirt or freckles. She had a few scrap pieces in her arms that looked like they came from an Empire Star Destroyer. "Can you hurry it up? Some of us have lives."

A number of beings behind her agreed and started to grumble.

Ben spent an extra few seconds looking down at the woman, before he turned back to Unkar Plutt and rapt his knuckles against the metal. "Maybe some other time," he said and stepped aside, flourishing his arm to allow the woman forward.

She looked at him as if he were crazy—furrowed brows, quizzical eyes, a fair helping of caution—and stepped up. Ben slowly made his way out, hearing Plutt give her a tiny quarter portion for her scrap. Ben felt a little guilty for putting the junker in a bad mood and maybe taking food from her.

He hung around but she slipped away without him seeing. He waited for the line to die down but it never did and the next thing he knew, Plutt had slipped away and Ben would have to wait until morning.

With the _Falcon_ so close, he hated staying in the shuttle, but he did, even though it was uncomfortable. He'd try once more to be reasonable before he just stole the _Falcon_ back. He wasn't going to waste any more days trying to be nice about it.

Just as he was settling down, the com puck in his pocket, used only by his family, pinged. With a sigh, he placed it on the dashboard and a small holograph image of his mother appeared in blue lines.

"Ben," she said, smiling.

"Hey, Mom," he replied, still irked about Plutt but trying not to look it.

"Your father told me everything."

"I'm sure he did," Ben said, rubbing the back of his neck. He'd sweat up a storm all day and could really use a shower but couldn't be bothered to jet back up to the freighter. Chewie was liable to keep making jabs at him until he got the _Falcon_ back. "I hope he isn't ruining your visit by spending all of it talking about me."

"I like talking about you," Leia mused. Though her face was tiny in the projection, he could imagine her eyes crinkling and her hand running through his hair affectionately. "And the visit hasn't started yet."

"Yes it has," Han's voice barely got picked up by the receiver.

"Once this call is over."

Ben couldn't help but smile a little at his parents antics. It had been a while since the three of them had been together; almost a whole year. He saw his uncles more than he saw his mom. But he guessed that's what happened when your mother was a politician. "So what do I owe the pleasure of this call then?"

"Business, I'm afraid," Leia said, her voice slipping into a more formal tone. "There's a missing droid that has pertinent information about...potential adversaries."

Since Han had left the Republic years ago to resume his lifelong passion of traveling the galaxy, swindling people out of their money, Ben had never really thought of a political life. Leia was continuously stressed about things, juggling the fate and weight of millions, billions of lives on her shoulders. Ben had never thought he'd be a good fit. But that didn't mean he was ignorant of the goings on in the universe.

"And where's this droid?" he asked.

"According to the pilot's last transmission, heading toward the Jakku system, probably to lose a tail."

"How convenient," Ben muttered.

"It is, actually. The Force works in mysterious ways," Leia said, sounding momentarily like her twin. "It's a white and orange BB unit. Very spunky. I like it almost as much as R2."

Ben raised his eyebrows. That was high praise coming from his mom. R2D2 was the family droid; he'd been through three whole generations of Skywalkers and was still a serviceable astromech. "Okay. I think I can find him. There isn't much on this planet anyway besides the bones of the Battle of Jakku."

Leia folded her hands in front of her. "You know I don't usually ask you to get involved with things on my end bu—"

"Mom," Ben interrupted. "It's fine. And like you said, I'm here already. I'll get the _Falcon_ , grab the droid and head straight for you. In the meantime, take Dad out. He's been crankier than usual lately."

"I heard that." Han's head appeared bodiless on the projector for a moment before disappearing again.

Ben chuckled. "Don't worry," he assured his parents. "I've got this."

* * *

Curiously, Ben woke with the young scavenger's face in his mind. Ever so briefly that he could make out her flyaway hairs and furrowed brows and skeptical, quizzical eyes and then blinked and she was gone. He had no idea if it was just a passing image or had some tie into his deep dreams but he could remember nothing so he waved it off. Stretching and popping joints from the uncomfortable sleep on the single small makeshift bunk in the shuttle, he decided on a plan of action before choking down emergency ration bars, which were chalky and tasted like absolutely nothing, before stepping into the sand.

It was cooler in the morning than the previous day when he reached the Niima Outpost. He looked around the tents for the woman but didn't find her. Plutt's _Concession Stand_ was locked up and Ben found himself poking around at what goods there were to offer. Not much honestly.

When Unkar Plutt's place opened, the people who hadn't been seen yesterday were already in line. Ben joined them, sticking out like a Wookiee in an Ewok village. Finally his turn came and he tried turning on the charm.

He smiled. "Good morning."

The Crolute saw him and his displeasure was palpable. "Oh, it's you."

"It's me." Ben inclined his head as if to apologize for his persistence. "I realize we got off on the wrong foot yesterday."

Unkar Plutt stared at him flatly. "I don't have feet, I have flippers."

Ben inwardly cursed. "Of course, of course. Figure of speech."

The junk dealer grunted.

Ben pushed on. "About that YT light freighter—"

"No. The answer's still no." This time, the words were accompanied by two beings clad head to toe in strips of light cloth stepping out, a club, worn blasters and a curved knife in their hands.

Ben got the message. He'd have to get the _Falcon_ the hard way then. "I get the message," he said, stepping back with his hands up.

Muttering to himself all the way back to the shuttle, he decided on the next course of action: find out what happened to the droid her mother was expecting.

That quest took up the rest of the day and the next. The planet was small but still large enough to warrant a fruitless search. He traveled to the three towns and asked about seeing a droid or a starfighter ship go down in the past day or so. The main consensus was a solid no, and he couldn't tell if it was because they didn't want to help him or they just hadn't seen a ship go down.

With nothing to go on and no help pinging the droid using the comm signal given by Leia, Ben returned his shuttle to near Niima. It was getting later in the day and he spotted a large red speeder pull up with a large amount of junk in the net on its side. On it was the same woman as before: dressed in light, flyaway cloth to keep sun and sand off of her, she tugged the makeshift stretcher of junk toward the cleaning station.

Ben's gaze kept getting dragged back to her even as he checked out Plutt's security around the shipyard. She scrubbed at her scraps and not long after she got there, a droid rolled up and bumped her against the leg. Ben let out a started laugh because it was an orange and white BB unit; it looked like it had sustained some damage and was missing its antenna which would explain why he hadn't been able to contact the droid.

The woman spoke to the droid and the little round unit stayed by her side. Ben would have gone right up to her and asked about it, but he didn't want to take any time out of her day that would be better put to use waiting in line. Which felt like a sorry existence to Ben, but he wasn't going to judge himself for it.

He did, however, spend some time poking around the shipyard, avoiding Plutt's thugs and eventually ducked into the main tent, just as the woman walked up to get her food for the scrap.

"That droid for sale?" Plutt asked, after putting half a portion on the table for her to take. The woman hesitated and Plut piled sixty portions of food, probably most of his stock for the day, on the counter. Ben frowned, about to step in as she started to grab all of the food packs.

"I'm...the droid's not for sale," she said finally. He could see her struggling to restrain herself from the food and step away with just a single portion in hand. The BB unit beeped a thank you as she dashed out of the tent. Ben followed but couldn't grab her before she was on her speeder and racing away, BB8 trailing behind.

Ben stood by the watering hole and sighed, running a hand through his hair and squinting at the horizon. "Okay. Change of plans," he said to no one in particular before hurrying back to his shuttle. He had to follow the droid and scavenger by guess since the sand had already started folding over BB8's path.

Ben's eyes widened as he saw the expanse of downed ships come into focus. This must have been the heart of the Battle of Jakku. He quickly found the red speeder and set his shuttle down a little ways away. There was a toppled AT-AT walker and the droid was outside of it, beeping into the interior.

He could have easily swiped the droid and left, but something kept him there. Leia often said that the Force worked in mysterious ways, weaving people's lives together for a purpose. Luke said the same sort of thing, and so Ben tended to believe it.

Maybe this was one of those moments.

He walked up to the troop compartment, where he could see a bit of the siding could easily be moved back and forth as a door. Ben rapt on it with his knuckles as the droid beeped at him, somehow already super protective of the woman within. The little BB unit even stuck out one of its arms and lit a little torch.

Ben stepped back from the fire just as the door was scraped aside a few inches and the woman's face poked out.

* * *

Rey recognized the man standing outside of her home from Unkar's tent immediately, mostly because he _didn't_ fit in. He was tall and had too nice clothes—that were too dark for the desert—and he was far too well fed.

"What do you want?" she asked, her hand gripping her staff hidden behind the door. The BB unit she'd found getting snagged the previous day by Teedo was telling him off. He seemed amused so he must have understood what the droid was beeping.

"I uh," he put his hands up in surrender at BB8's torch and the droid beeped an acceptance and rolled as far back toward Rey as it could. "I've actually been looking for the droid."

Rey tightened her hand around the staff and narrowed her eyes at him. To put things simply, she wasn't used to kindness or generosity, even if a part of her wished those things existed in her world. But they didn't. So she was always ready for a fight, always ready to be stabbed in the back, like when Unkar Plutt had her refurbish a ship and then stole it after promising her a part in his junk ring.

BB8 beeped in protest.

"I don't think he wants to go with you," Rey said, keeping her voice level.

The man sighed and squinted against the sun setting slowly over the horizon beyond her home. She was starving and hadn't yet mixed together the food from her day's scrap. Her stomach growled loudly.

"My mother sent me for it," the man continued. He turned his attention to the droid then, leaning down a bit since he was so tall. "Senator Organa. You know her."

BB8 beeped an affirmation.

"She sent me to find you. See?" He dug around in a pouch at his side and pulled out a holopuck and turned on a recording. A woman with a regal stature and long dress showed up in the blue image. BB8 beeped excitedly at the sight. The man smiled with his entire self—she'd never known it was possible to smile with your whole body, but this stranger managed to do it—and put the puck back. Rey released her hold on her staff and pushed the rest of the door open, casually and cautiously stepping out onto the sand.

"Who are you?" she asked, tilting her head to look up at him. Just because BB8 trusted him didn't mean she had to.

He turned to her, his face still in the throws of a smile. "Oh. Uh. Ben Solo," he offered out a hand.

She looked at it like it was a slimy, boiling tentacle. And then the name clicked and her eyes widened. "Solo? As in Han Solo, the legendary smuggler?" She couldn't contain her excitement, eyes glittering.

He dropped his hand and shrugged a shoulder, perhaps a little offended. "Yes. He's my dad. I'm a smuggler too," he added as an afterthought. "We work _together_."

Rey stepped forward, the desire for her life to be more than just this desert blooming in her chest. "Is he here?"

"No. I'm here." He tilted his head and looked at her as if trying to figure her out. _Good luck with that,_ she thought, _I'm still trying to figure myself out._ "I do need that droid though. It's a matter of security."

"BB8 can go where he chooses," Rey said as the droid rolled between them, though not all the way to this Ben Solo. She then noticed a trash heap of a shuttle beyond the man's shoulder. " _That's_ your ship?"

Ben scoffed. "No. I fly the _Millennium Falcon_."

Rey's eyes got as big as the moon. "You do? Where is it?"

"Currently?" He made a face and rubbed at his neck. "In Unkar Plutt's shipyard."

Rey's wide eyes narrowed quickly. "How did it get there?"

"It's unimportant," Ben said, clearing his throat. Then something made him continue. "I may have accidentally lost it in a gamble."

BB8 nearly screamed in shock. Rey understood the droid's surprise. "The _Millennium Falcon_?"

"People try stealing it all the time."

Rey paused and tried to make sense of all of this. "So you're...you're what? Going to take the droid in that shuttle and come back for the _Falcon_? I can look after it for you, make sure Unkar doesn't start stripping it for parts." Her hopefulness was palpable.

There was a beat in which Ben very much struggled with an answer. What his choices were, she didn't know, but something in the back of her mind told her that this was about her. Which she wasn't so sure about. Yet.

"I wasn't planning on leaving Jakku on my shuttle," he said finally.

BB8 questioned him. "Yeah, I second that," Rey nodded.

Ben tilted his head up, placed his hands on his hips and sighed a little. "You do realize that uh...smuggling isn't inherently…legal."

Then it dawned on Rey and she made an "O" with her mouth. "You're planning on stealing the ship back." It actually was a little thrilling, the thought of taking something from Unkar Plutt.

"Yes," he replied with a relieved smile. "You...you could help, if you wanted to take a spin in the _Falcon_. Have you ever flown before?"

"Yes." She felt breathless and pinched her arm to make sure she wasn't dreaming. Nope, this was actually happening. "I've fixed and flown a couple ships but never left the planet."

He dropped his arms and waved them welcomingly. "All right then. So do you want to? Come with me I mean."

BB8 trilled in the sand.

"Yeah, and for the droid," Ben said. "I'm not very good at fixing droids."

Rey held her breath for a moment before she let a full smile spread across her face. "I...I mean…" _Yes_! she wanted to say unabashedly. _Yes_ with her whole body and soul. She always wanted more, always knew there was more out there than just Jakku, but she was here, stagnant and there was never anything she could do about it with Unkar Plutt controlling her.

But then…

"I'm...I can't leave Jakku for long," she said, her excitement dying down. He, this stranger who she already felt as if she could trust which was a big deal for her, looked slightly disappointed. "I have to come back. For my family."

"I've got a freight hauler up in orbit. You won't have to stay away long."

As BB8 insisted, beeping rapidly at their feet, Rey was still unsure. Her stomach growled, that low, empty growl that came from too many days without enough to eat. She twisted her hand in her loose panels of cloth swirling around her legs.

"It sounds like the droid won't leave without you," Ben prompted. It was true. BB8 had gotten attached to her even though she hadn't been able to completely repair it with the things she had laying around her home.

She looked down at the small droid, who she didn't necessarily want to take care of, but had done anyway. The droid tilted his half-sphere head toward her and she relented. "Okay," she said finally, the excitement bubbling up in her again. "But I have to come right back."

Ben grinned and clapped his hands together. "Great. I have a plan."

"Give me a minute," Rey interrupted, going back into the AT-AT and fixing herself some food with meager drops of water. She paused, staring at the tall wall inside, covered with now-countless markings. Ignoring the twist in her stomach, she walked back outside and motioned this Ben Solo to follow her to the shade of the walker's foot. She sat in the sand and BB8 rolled up next to her. Ben sat after a few seconds and laid out his plan while she shoveled food in her face.

It was a simple plan involving the cover the darkness and...well, that was about it. Maybe a bit of fighting if Plutt left guards by the shipyard. Ben blamed himself for that, since he'd been asking about the ship for a couple days now.

"I know the ship inside and out. Shouldn't take long to take off," Ben finished as Rey went and licked her plate without a single blink of a thought about the fact that she had company. If she could call him that.

"Okay," Rey said as the sky grew darker. The sun dipped down under the horizon fast here. "What about your shuttle?"

"I'll leave it. As payment, I guess," the smuggler shrugged.

She squinted her eyes at him, wondering what parts of him were from Han Solo. She wouldn't go out and say she'd die to meet the legendary man, but she sure as hell was thinking about it. Was Han Solo up on the freight hauler above Jakku? She glanced skyward as she set her plate aside and covered it in sand with a hand mechanically rubbing it clean.

"Unkar Plutt is not going to be happy," she insisted, taking the plate in her hands and feeling it with her fingers. All of the moisture was gone already.

"I was thinking about that," Ben said, leaning back on his hands in the sand. His hands sunk in but he didn't seem to mind. "Does he have more ships than that? Any bounty hunters or mercs I should be worried about coming after us?"

Rey pursed her lips, amused that he thought the junker had that many resources. "No, nothing like that. We just have to worry about whatever beings are patrolling the shipyard. The Irving Boys sometimes run people off for him, but since they just paid off their debt they probably left the planet to celebrate."

"Good, good." He stood then, delicate granules of sand cascading from his dark trousers and hands as he dusted himself off. "So you've really never been off planet before?"

She stood on her own, shaking out her plate accidentally on BB8, who let out a squeak and shook his head around to get rid of the sand. "No. I've...always dreamed," she said the last words very softly as she walked past him, back toward her home.

Ben followed her halfway, no longer having to squint against the sun. He didn't follow her inside or invade her space, which she was grateful for.

"I can't imagine," his voice found her inside as she put her plate back and ran her eyes over the small pieces of her life. Her Rebel fighter doll, her helmet, her flower, now delicately dead, and those marks. Pressing her lips together in a thin line, she grabbed her staff and exited the AT-AT. "Then again, I can't imagine living in _Hellhound Two_."

"What?" She frowned over her shoulder at him as she pulled her door back in place.

Ben tapped against the walker's leg. "This is _Hellhound Two_. I'd recognize it anywhere." He didn't specify how he knew. He wasn't nearly old enough to have been in the battle. Perhaps he watched old recordings or knew because Han Solo told him. She didn't speculate, putting her staff's belt over her chest.

"It's served me well," she said with a shrug. The sun had disappeared when she was inside. "Let's go. We can wait around the outpost until it clears out. Unkar should be gone by now." She smiled, just a bit, realizing what she had signed up for, what she was about to do.

* * *

The shuttle was smaller than the lounge on the _Falcon_ including wings, so there wasn't much space for the two of them and the droid. They'd settled the shuttle down a little ways from the outpost and watched the shadows of night drive off most of the riffraff.

"That should just about do it," Rey said quietly, peeking out the windscreen, leaning forward and knocking the roof of the shuttle with the staff slung across her back.

Ben was seated at the controls and twisted in his seat to look at her. It wasn't hard, she was leaning over the back of the chair. He could make out the individual hairs in the wavy wisps that fell framing her face.

"You never told me your name," he said finally, before she caught him staring. He gently turned the seat around toward the rest of the shuttle and she moved back on her soft soled boots.

"Rey," she said slowly, as if she wasn't sure if she should tell him her name. It wasn't as if names held power or anything like that. She had no family name, she was just...Rey. And yet a tiny, survivalist part of her was still turned on, wanting to protect herself from the new and unknown.

"Okay," Ben said softly. "Nice to officially meet you." He smiled a little and she returned the smile before BB8 interrupted whatever moment they were having.

"You can come with us," Rey told the droid, crouching to be more on eye level. "We need to keep you close in case things go badly and we need to leave right away." She glanced up at Ben for affirmation and he nodded once.

"Plus my mom always says you should never underestimate a droid so it'll be good to have you around," Ben said, powering down the shuttle.

Rey smiled a little more freely in the darkening cabin. The door hissed open and BB8 rolled out, followed by the two of them. With the disappearance of the sun over Jakku, the heat from the planet was almost instantly gone. By now, the earth was cool to the touch, and the air was thin and chilled.

Ben layered up on his jacket and checked his blaster, making sure he had everything he needed from the shuttle. He hadn't brought much, but he didn't want to leave anything behind that could be potentially damning. But nope, he had the communication puck and hadn't used the shuttle to call anyone. He'd wiped the meager navi history and now the poor thing would probably be stripped for parts.

He didn't feel bad about leaving the ship, feeling more anxious about getting the _Falcon_.

Rey stayed in the shadow of the shuttle and counted a handful of goons under Unkar Plutt's pay. "There's five that I can see," she whispered. There was a whole fence around the shipyard and only one gate.

"I hate how we have to go through the whole outpost," Ben said, leaning above her and peering around the end of the shuttle to scope out the set up of the tents. He leaned quite close and Rey jerked around, knocking his shin with the hard end of her staff. He let out a muffled "ow" and Rey looked at him with the same wide eyed look one would find on a startled animal before she twirled around and started heading for the tents.

"Hey," Ben whisper-hissed from the shuttle. "Wait!"

She slunk along, BB8 rolling silently behind her. Making a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, Ben took his blaster in hand and crouched as long as he could as he slipped toward the outpost. A couple beings were asleep at their tents, looking like nothing but piles of cloth. Ben caught up with Rey near the _Concession Stand_ , the hardiest of the tents.

Just as he was about to whisper something, she lifted a finger to her lips for silence and pushed him back against the metal of the stand. A shadow fell across the outside of the tent of a limping, humanoid shape. Rey's arm was tiny against his chest and she only dropped it once the guard was gone.

Silently agreeing that being _silent_ would be for the best, Ben followed Rey out a back flap of the tent. There was another guard a ways down to the west, but they stuck to the shadows and slipped to the other side of the gate. The fence around the shipyard was electrified and there wasn't much to it. With very few places to hide, Ben and Rey shared a glance in which Ben just shrugged and nodded toward the _Falcon_ , which was anchored to the planet with flimsy ropes and a tarp.

The entrance ramp was wide open and, after the next guard passed by the archway of the gate, they rushed toward the ship. BB8 made a bit more noise than they'd hoped rolling up the ramp, but there was no going back now.

"How good are you at piloting?" Ben asked once the ramp was up, shoving his blaster back in its holster. He was already powering up the ship on his way to the cockpit.

Rey tucked away her absolute blissful excitement of being _inside_ the _Millennium Falcon_ and followed him as BB8 beeped out his worries. "Not too bad." A pause. "Like I said, I've never left the planet but it's like machines speak to me."

Ben plopped down in the pilot's chair. "Good." He nodded toward the other seat. "The _Falcon_ runs better with two."

Grinning, Rey put aside her staff and climbed into the seat. The array of buttons, switches, gages and screens didn't intimidate her. Like she'd said, she'd never had problems fixing or flying or riding any ships or speeders or droids. It was like instinct.

The quiet desert filled with the sound of the engines warming, and with the outer ramp locked, there was nothing Unkar Plutt's goons could do to stop the _Falcon_ from lifting off the ground. It rose a little shakily, breaking the anchors and soaring through the thin air.

"Whew, that was easier than I thought," Ben said, happy to be back in the _Falcon_. The junk dealer hadn't had it long enough to do much damage by the looks and feel of it. He glanced over at Rey, who was equally as happy, grinning wide.

"I can't believe I'm in the _Millennium Falcon_ ," she said, catching him looking at her. "This is like...a dream."

"Yeah, she's pretty spectacular," Ben said, running his hand along the curve of the ship's control panel.

BB8 trilled from behind them.

"You're right," she said to the droid and checked the sensor screens to her right, which showed that there were no ships following them. "Looks like we're free to go," she said, squinting out the windscreen, wondering where the cargo hauler was that Ben had mentioned.

Ben flicked a couple switches and grabbed the accelerator. "All right. You ready to go off planet for the first time, Rey?"

The stars were stretched out in front of them, waiting, and Rey felt a tinge of unease in the pit of her stomach but she pushed it down. She'd be back to Jakku soon. Everything would be fine. "Let's go," she nodded.

Ben pushed the accelerator forward and they shot up through the atmosphere, leaving behind the Niima Outpost and _Hellhound Two_ and Unkar Plutt. Despite her fear of being away from Jakku for too long, Rey felt a moment of pure freedom as they came free of the atmosphere and entered quiet, dark space.

She sat forward, gripping the arms of the copilot's chair, astounded at the simple act of being away from the planet.

Ben couldn't relate, as he spent most of his life on ships and jumping from planet to planet, but he could see the wonder and amazement on her face and he stayed quiet and let her enjoy it before they got back to business.

The hauler was a bit away and Ben set up a channel to contact Chewie. No sooner had he got a clear signal than three ships dropped out of hyperspace between them and the hauler.

"That doesn't look good," Ben muttered, turning to the scanning screen and trying to pull up the ships.

"Do you recognize them?" Rey asked, feeling unease creep into the back of her mind unwarranted.

"Nope. But they...they look like pirates."

BB8 beeped in alarm.

"Yeah, they're probably after you, BB8," Ben told the little droid. Horrified, the round astromech hid in a corner of the cockpit.

The _Falcon_ shook as one of the ships fired on them.

"What do we do?" Rey asked, voice tight.

"Shields up," Ben said, working on his side of the controls panel. Rey found her complimentary controls and raised the shields. The ship's power flickered as another shot hit them. Ben quickly got to his feet. "Take the controls."

"What?!" Rey screeched, twisting in the seat.

He paused in the doorway. "Take the controls. Trust your instincts. I'm going down to the turret. We've got to take them out or make them run." He paused for one moment, holding her gaze before he disappeared around the bend and climbed down to the turret.

Scrambling between the seats, Rey got behind the main controls. BB8 made a mournful sound from behind her seat.

"It's okay," she assured the droid. "It isn't your fault."

Breathing deeply and evenly, she did as Ben said and went with her instincts. She twisted the ship around so they weren't sitting still as an easy target and just let her body take over, her mind working separately, but just as fast.

Out of the three ships, one was focused on the _Falcon_ and the other two had turned their attention toward the large hauler.

"Okay, Rey," Ben's voice came through the comms system, "we can do this."

"Sure, yeah, of course," Rey said, a little unconvinced but she shook aside her uncertainty and the ship shot forward.

The battle was a blur. The _Falcon_ flew like a dream, responding to her control like it was meant to be. Ben shot far past the one ship toward the ones attacking the freighter. The Wookiee's communication blasted through the ship and Rey could understand it, taking the _Falcon_ closer for a more enticing target. The freight hauler had shields but not much in line of weaponry.

Ben blasted away one of the ships as they started trailing the _Falcon_. With one down and two to go, Rey raced around in deep space above the planet that had been her home for her entire life. The _Falcon_ 's shields held and the second ship ran off limping through hyperspace. The last ship was determined to get at them.

It was also pretty fast.

Ben's frustrated sounds came through the comms unit. "I can't get a clean shot."

Rey, adrenaline pumping, but feeling more in control than she had just minutes before, thought about what to do. Her first instinct was...a little crazy. "Hang on," she called out. She had only one chance for this. Taking a deep breath, she pulled on the decelerator and the pirate ship shot below them, exposing its more vulnerable back. Ben took the shot and the ship smoked and flamed and headed down through the Jakku atmosphere.

Chewbacca growled through the communication channel and Ben reappeared in the cockpit as Rey came down from the excitement.

"That was amazing," Ben said, not bothering to change seats and getting into the copilot's chair.

"I've never flown like that before," Rey insisted modestly, though she felt proud of herself for being such a natural.

"Could've fooled me," he said with a genuine smile before opening the channel to Chewie for a direct line. "Hey, Chewie, you okay over there?" The Wookiee replied. "I had to get a droid for Mom and we think those pirates were after it too."

Chewie asked who "we" was, but Ben didn't reply. Instead, he turned to Rey. "We should stop on the hauler to check the ship before moving on. That okay?"

Rey nodded. When Ben didn't ask for them to change seats, she took the ship forward and toward the hauler, which was a lot less stressful than the fight with the pirates. The _Falcon_ settled into the hangar and Ben cut off the main power and left auxiliary power going so they could check the shields and systems.

BB8 rolled out of the _Falcon_ beeping up a storm and Rey followed more slowly, a bit hesitant to leave the ship. Her version of Han Solo, legendary smuggler, was just him and the equally legendary ship. She heard stories growing up from decades earlier, so she should have assumed that things had changed, but she didn't know it would be _so_ different.

"Are you okay?" Ben asked, startling her as she stood at the bottom of the ramp.

She took in a breath and nodded. "Yeah. This is just more excitement than I've had in my whole life."

He smiled a small, understanding smile and gently touched her shoulder. "You can say with the _Falcon_ and run diagnostics if you'd like. I'm going to contact my mom and see where she wants me to bring the droid."

Thankful for his offer to stay with the ship, she and BB8 returned to the inside of the _Falcon_. Ben left them, trusting that the ship would be there when he returned, and moved through a couple of corridors toward the nearest lounge room. It was technically a hold, but there was a holotable and a cooler. He grabbed himself a proper drink and called Leia on the comm table.

There was no answer from his mother, and he realized that the difference in time must mean she was asleep. With nothing else to do, he found Chewie and explained about BB8 and Rey. The Wookiee was bewildered at why he would bring a strange girl with him and Ben didn't really have a good answer about it at his disposal.

"It just happened," he insisted. Chewbacca was unconvinced. "You know what it's like. Sometimes things just happen for a reason and you have to run with it. Isn't that what happened with you and Dad?"

Chewie reluctantly agreed and Ben made his way back to the Falcon. It was quiet inside and he didn't have to go far to find Rey crashed out asleep on the lounge sofa, BB8 quietly watching over her. Ben took a pillow from the nearest bunk and carefully put it under her head and laid a thin blanket over her before returning to the hauler and finding his way to his quarters. He took a quick shower to wash away all the sand from Jakku and fell asleep himself.

* * *

Rey woke up in an unfamiliar place. She had a moment of panic before she remembered what had happened earlier. Her flight in the _Falcon_ , meeting Ben Solo, fighting off pirates. Sitting up, a blanket fell off her torso and she frowned. She didn't remember grabbing a blanket or a pillow for that matter before she fell asleep.

BB8 was vocal enough to tell her that Ben did it and she felt a little heat rise in her face before she got to her feet. She found a small galley area of the ship that had water running in the sink and she drank greedily before exploring the ship more. There was a refresher room too, which she used, though it took her a while to figure out how the shower stall worked. She had no other clothes to put on, but she shook out her outfit and put it on again after she stepped out.

Ben wasn't on the _Falcon_ , so she left the ship. She hesitated before walking close to the door that led out of the hangar. It slid open for her and she simply wandered around, trying to find a living creature. On the way, they'd found a parts room and Rey was able to replace BB8's antenna, which was thanked her for. He also instantly hid his signal so that other pirates wouldn't trace him and attack the ship again.

"That's very smart of you," Rey told the little droid just as a growl filled the space. She twisted around and spotted a very tall, very hairy creature. Realizing that it must have been the being on the comm in the _Falcon_ , she let the tension out of her muscles. "Hi. I'm Rey."

The Wookiee told her he was Chewbacca and that Ben had told him about her. He also welcomed her to the hauler and showed her to the nearest galley for some food. It was real food too, something Rey had never had the pleasure of eating. Fresh produce, vegetables and fruits and it was almost _too_ full of taste for her. She ate as much as she possibly could while chatting with BB8.

She was just sitting back fit to burst when Ben walked in, looking refreshed. And was that...a small braid hidden in his long hair behind his ear? Rey didn't get a chance to look any closer, as he moved around the room to get himself food as well.

"I hope you slept all right on the _Falcon_ ," he said over his shoulder as he set up a machine to make a cup of caf and brought a plate and bowl to the table to join her. "I found you sleeping in there and figured you needed the rest."

Rey shoved a piece of fruit into her mouth and nodded. "Thank you," she said once her mouth wasn't full.

They sat in relative silence for a while, Rey trying desperately not to eat any more lest she get sick and Ben just trying to wake up. He was always out of sorts when he first got out of bed and their late night adventures had gotten his sleep schedule out of wack.

It was companionable silence, something that neither of them was really familiar with. Rey was used to being _alone_ so having a companion was equal parts bizarre and welcome. And Ben was used to being with his dad and Chewie and there was always something going on with them: light hearted arguments, games of dejarik, or meetings with potential clients.

But it was... _nice_ to just sit there, with nothing to prove, nothing meaningless to fill in the time. It was as if something _more_ was keeping them at ease with each other.

Eventually though, Rey opened her mouth to speak. "Did you ever get in touch with Senator Organa?" she asked, relaying a question BB8 had asked her repeatedly earlier. "BB8 was going to try to contact her but decided cloaking and dampening his radio signal would be best in case more pirates found us."

"Good idea," Ben said, taking a sip of his caf and winking at the droid, who didn't really know how to respond, making a little "whoa" noise and quietly settling down next to Rey's feet. "I talked to my mom this morning. After the pirate attack, she asked us to bring us BB8 directly."

"Directly?" Rey repeated. "Are we still over Jakku?"

Ben wasn't sure. He stood, finishing his caf and leaving it at the table before walking over to the comm inset near the door. He called up Chewie and got a response of how they were on the edge of the Jakku system, having drifted over the last eight or so hours after the pirate attacks.

He turned away from the comm and motioned between it and Rey. "Can you understand him?"

She nodded, face a little tense. "How long would it take to get back to Jakku?"

"Not too long," Ben said, noticing her stress but not truly understanding. It wasn't as if he could read her mind; that was a Jedi trick and he was no Jedi. He had as much to do with the Force as his dad did, which was to say...nothing. "I was really hoping that you'd come with me."

The words hung in the air and Rey grappled with her anxiety of being away from Jakku and her desire to be free and have a life of her own.

"For BB8's sake," he added too late. "Plus you'd be able to meet my father. He usually hates meeting fans but I think he'd make an exception for you."

Rey thought about it. Meeting Han Solo was just as much a dream as seeing, touching, and flying the _Millennium Falcon_ , something she'd never thought would ever happen. Could too much of a good thing be just that; too much? Should she just take her glorious experience and go back to her life, her waiting? Half her mind was telling her to do so. The other half wanted desperately to continue breaking free. Not just travel off planet to an orbiting hauler but to step foot on another _planet_ and meet her hero? The thought was too much.

"I need to get back to Jakku," was her answer. It pained her to say the words as much as it pained her to _not_ to say that she would go with him. She stood up then, anxiety flooding her system. Suddenly the tiny, enclosed space of the hold was _too_ small for the girl who lived on a barren expanse with nothing but open sky or enormous Deathstar innards around her. "I've already been gone too long." She started to walk toward Ben, toward the door that would take her back to the _Falcon_.

"It hasn't even been half a day," Ben insisted, reaching out for her as she walked past him.

She twisted away from him. "I have to go back. If my family comes and I'm not there—" The sense of alarm caught in her throat and she backed toward the door.

Ben saw something in Rey's face that made him take a step back. Even BB8 seemed to sense the change in her and beeped cautiously.

"I didn't realize you had family on Jakku," Ben said, holding his hands out in a sort of surrender.

"I...I don't. Not exactly." She blinked back a flush of hot tears and clenched her fists. "They left, but they'll be back one day and if I'm not there, they won't know where I am."

"Okay," Ben said slowly, trying to make sense of what she was saying. As far as he'd observed there were no people on Jakku that looked as if they could be Rey's family. Her AT-AT was far from Niima and he'd never seen her speak to another soul who wasn't Unkar Plutt, her only source for food. All of this, paired with many years of traveling the galaxy, seeing all sorts of planets and people, and he started to perhaps understand a little bit more about Rey. And if he was right, he instantly felt bad, not in a pitying way, just in a general sense of how hard and lonely her life appeared to be. "But I need to get BB8 to Hosnian Prime. It's a matter of galactic importance."

Rey took in a shaky breath. The hold was not only filled with food but also with boxes of this and that, things acquired over twenty years of smuggling. Some of these smaller things—pipes, speeder parts, various droid pieces—started to shake.

"Your family…" Ben hesitated, eyeing a shaking box in mild confusion. "They'll know where to find you, wherever you are."

If he was trying to make her feel better, that backfired. Instead of being soothed, she felt a spike of anger in her chest, fiery and hot. "You don't understand!" she nearly yelled, hands clenched at her sides. One of the pipes from the box took to the air by an invisible force and swung toward Ben, whose bewilderment caused him to move too slowly and he was hit in the head with the flying metal.

BB8 exclaimed and as Ben fell unceremoniously to the floor, Rey blinked and came back to herself, breathing shakily and feeling wrung out like an old piece of cloth. Everything felt weirdly calm and still before her eyes focused on the prone form of Ben Solo and BB8's soft whining. He may have been an astromech droid and not a med droid but even he knew what humans were and weren't supposed to do. And falling limply to the ground was not one of those things.

"What did I do?" Rey whispered out, getting to her knees and shoving the piece of metal to the side as if it were the cause of all of this. She touched Ben's neck, feeling a steady pulse and his breath on her arm. Swallowing hard, she reached around and felt through his hair, bringing back fingers with blood on them. Not a pool of it, but it was glistening and red on her fingertips.

Stunning into silence, she just sat there, not knowing what to do. Her first instinct was to run, but she wasn't on a planet, she had nowhere to run. Hypothetically she could steal the _Falcon_ , but even that thought made her feel truly guilty. Her stomach in knots, she tried to focus. Muttering under her breath, she made a mess of the cabinets in the hold, looking for a med pack. Just when she was about to ask BB8 to connect to the system and try to find the infirmary or a med droid, she found a med pack with bacta spray. The medicine was a novelty on Jakku, but she knew what it did and she carefully tried to wash away the blood before spraying the bacta solution and then scrubbing her hands in the sink.

Her hands shaking, she gave him one last look and headed for the door. There had to be more ships on this hauler. Perhaps another junker shuttle that would have just enough power to get to back to Jakku.

Just as she was about to exit, she heard Ben groan behind her. He woke startled and confused, head pounding, eyes swimming. It took all his effort to focus his vision. Seeing Rey about to leave, he croaked out a "Wait" as he used the table and chair near him to stand. Swaying in place, he put a hand on the table to keep himself upright.

"Rey, _wait_ ," he said, voice a bit stronger. The hit hadn't been as hard as it could have been, breaking skin but not bone. The bacta was already working its magic.

"I'm sorry," Rey said, panicked as the door slid open. She was ready to bolt.

Ben stepped forward, a hand out. "It's okay, really." The look on his face made her hesitate; he was looking at her like she was important. No one ever looked at her like that before.

"I don't…I don't know what happened," she said, voice small.

"I do."

She tried not to look like she desperately needed him to be telling the truth. "You do?"

"You're…Force Sensitive."

She repeated the words, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "What does that mean?"

"It means…y'know," he gestured around him with wild arm movements, "you can use the Force."

Rey blinked. "The force of what?"

Ben stared at her for a long moment and then he started laughing, even as it made his head pound. He laughed with his whole body so much he had to sit down and wipe his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said through his tears. Rey's emotional state right now was not prepared for this level of amused outburst.

She looked confused and slightly horrified. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'll be fine," Ben managed to get out before he controlled himself and motioned for her to come over. He didn't demand it and waited as she slowly wrestled with herself and finally came to sit at the table, pushing aside his dishes from his meal.

"Was that me?" she asked, voice serious and somber. She glanced over at the pipe in question and avoided looking at Ben.

"Yes."

Fear flashed across her face and she retreated into herself, pulling her arms off the table.

Ben reached across and just let his arm lay on the table pointing toward her. "Hey, it's not your fault."

"Isn't it?"

"Did you feel in control?"

"No."

"Then it wasn't your fault." He sighed, trying to piece together what he knew about the Force from past conversations with his mother and uncle. "Let's start small. Have you ever moved anything...with your mind before?"

He realized that he probably sounded stupid to her, and that tiny bit of human inflection made her relax. "No. I've never gotten angry like that before...I don't even know why I got so angry." Frowning, she worked her hands together in her lap.

"It's okay," Ben insisted. He kept insisting and intended to do so until she believed him. "Have you heard of the Jedi before?"

"I've heard of Luke Skywalker," she said softly. "But always as a story, a myth. He didn't realize exist, did he?"

Ben sat back and let out a huff of air that flipped up the bit of hair that had fallen in his face. Oh boy was she in for a surprise. "He's very real. And he is a Jedi."

"Oh," Rey said softly. BB8 rolled to her side and bumped her leg and beeped. Rey's eyes widened. " _You_ know Luke Skywalker?" Another set of beeps. "Only through his sister…" Rey turned to Ben then, eyes wide.

Ben shrugged a little sheepishly.

"Luke Skywalker is your _uncle_?" Rey squeaked.

"Yeah."

She sat back, the tension and stress in her body replaced by surprise and amazement. "I...who are you?"

He grinned. "I'm just...Ben Solo, I promise you. I have no connection to the Force. I'm just a smuggler."

More intrigued than upset, Rey sat forward a little. "I still don't understand what that is. The Force?"

"It's uh...um…" Ben ran a hand through his hair to feel the healing wound as he thought. "It's basically this invisible energy that connects everything in the universe. And some people, like you, can connect to it and use it to…"

"Move stuff with my mind."

"Among other things."

Rey frowned, still confused. This was not what she'd expected her life to be less than a day away from Jakku but if it was really happening around her she had to accept it, didn't she? She looked deep in herself and asked herself if she wanted to follow her own path, or stay on Jakku and do nothing but salvage for the rest of her life. The prospect sounded barren and lonely.

"But...what does it mean? And what does it have to do with Luke Skywalker? And the Jedi?"

Ben took a deep breath. "I'm really not the person to ask about this. I only vaguely understand what my mom and uncle are talking about half the time. Dad and I stay away from all the Force stuff."

"You have the most amazing family." The words slipped out of Rey's mouth without her thinking about them. She then flushed in embarrassment over them.

"Yeah," Ben agreed with a little chuckle. "I do." A beat later and it was his time to grow somber, remembering her outburst. Not wanting to push her too far, he tried to figure out what to say next. Finally, he settled on, "Are you okay coming with me to deliver BB8?"

The words triggered the previous outburst for Rey but didn't stir up the same panic and anxiety. She thought seriously about it. BB8 beeped beside her.

"You'll be able to meet Han Solo," Ben added as an afterthought.

She brightened a little, smiling without showing her teeth, a dimple carving into her cheek. "I think I'd like to return to Jakku...eventually. But I'll go with you. For BB8's sake."

"Great." Ben gave her a smile and stood, testing his dizziness. His head felt clear and his vision wasn't fuzzy. "We've got a whole hold full of clothes if you wanted to change...I'll get the _Falcon_ prepped and let Chewie know we're leaving."

He walked slowly out of the room then, leaving Rey sitting there with BB8. She was a little confused, a little scared of herself, but something about Ben made her feel safe.

* * *

Once jumping to hyperspace, Rey settled into the lounge and pulled up the HoloNet for stories about Jedi and Ben rested in the big custom bunk. The trip to Hosnian Prime would take a while. BB8 settled in to charge up and the _Falcon_ was eerily quiet as Rey listened to newsreels with any Jedi mentions.

There were a handful in the last five years. Mentions of people wielding blue and green lightsabers once thought to be mythical and a thing of long ago, saving people and stepping into major disputes. They didn't ask for recognition and there were few pictures of them; most were from afar and were blurry.

If she dug far enough—and since the _Falcon_ 's connection to the HoloNet was for smugglers she had the reach to find long buried stories and those contained on the black net—she could read stories about a world before the Imperial Empire ever existed. Thousands of Jedi spread out across the galaxy, spreading peace but also fighting wars. There were names that stuck out to her like Anakin Skywalker, Mace Windu, Yoda, Quinlan Voss, and Aayla Secura, talking about a world full of the power of the Force.

Rey had always been thirsty for knowledge, wanting _more_ out of her life, but she hadn't known what she wanted or what she'd been missing. This was the connection, the history she'd never had growing up. The reason for her outburst on the hauler, the thing that had started all of this, was about her family.

Rey had been on Jakku for fifteen years, under the so-called care of Unkar Plutt until she was able to take care of herself and go off to live on her own. Her family...they'd left, and the only connection she had to them was the planet. The one thing that had kept her going, kept her spirits high, was the thought of her parents coming back for her. They _had_ to have a good reason for leaving, didn't they? And they would come back.

They would.

But they hadn't and her optimism was waning. It was difficult to live in a place so void of life and feel hopeful. And the thought of turning her back on the one thing she'd had to keep going for was scary and obviously it was an internal struggle. It was so intense that it expressed itself physically.

She felt a pang of guilt remembering the injury she'd given Ben, but he had insisted he was fine. She couldn't get the image of red on her hands out of her head though, and burying her nose in the HoloNet was keeping her distracted.

Amid the talk of the Jedi, she heard a word held in contempt but similarity: Sith. Just thinking the word gave her a chill up and down her spine. As the cold feeling grew, she decided to look up things about Luke Skywalker specifically instead. There was plenty of talk about him joining the Rebellion when Darth Vader still lived and terrorized the universe. He became the first Jedi in a generation, stopped the Emperor and saved the galaxy. There was little talk about him after his heroic younger years.

There was mention of a marriage, though Rey didn't recognize the name of Luke's partner. She wanted to dig deeper, but the thought of looking into Han Solo or Leia Organa felt like a disrespectful thing to do while on board a ship with their son.

"Have you been looking at that thing this whole time?" Ben asked, startling her. He was standing in the corridor doorway, hair disheveled from sleep, wearing just a white shirt only half buttoned and a pair of trousers. No vest, no jacket, and no blaster holster.

Rey shut down the hologram and sheepishly uncurled herself from the position she'd balled herself into. "I have a lot to catch up on. We don't exactly get up to date news on Jakku." She watched as he walked around BB8 to join her on the curved couch. "Are you doing better?"

He slid into the couch and nodded. "Yep. I'm feeling fine. I keep telling you."

"And I appreciate it but I've never hurt someone...like that before." She once again avoided his gaze. "I've had to defend myself on Jakku but I didn't _want_ to hurt you. You weren't attacking me."

Ben waved his hand back and forth. "Kind of was, just didn't realize it. Which," he dipped his head trying to get her to look at him, "I should apologize for. I didn't realize that leaving Jakku would mean so much to you."

She allowed her eyes to meet his and saw no anger nor blame and allowed herself to relax again. "I've never left before so I didn't know either." Not wanting to linger on it, she decided a change in subject was in order. "I tried looking up Luke Skywalker but didn't find very much information."

"Yeah, he doesn't like to be in the spotlight. After defeating the Empire, he spent a while searching for a cause and ended up building a...school I guess, to teach young Force users. To train another generation of Jedi."

"Like those people in the last few years showing up with lightsabers around the galaxy."

"Exactly. It takes a good portion of your life to train to become a fully fledged Jedi Master according to the books but Luke...he's taken the rules into his own hands. He didn't have much training and yet he still has a wealth of knowledge. So he's passing it on."

"He teaches people how to control the Force."

"Yeah, sure. And Jedi teachings, like where their place is in the galaxy. It's not all about knocking out smugglers with pipes." The joke fell a little flat and Ben apologized. "Anyway, you could...you could always go there."

"To this Jedi school?" The thought hadn't even occurred to her. She frowned, scrunching up her nose. Ben tilted his head to the side, unable to keep the caring softness out of his eyes. "I don't know about that."

"You don't have to decide anything now," Ben assured her. "I know it's a lot to take in and I'm honestly the worst person to talk about it with. Actually...maybe my dad would be worse. You may have some peace of mind if you talk to my mother."

"Senator Organa?" Rey felt a wave of anxiety. According to the HoloNet, Leia Organa was a powerhouse of a woman, serving the Rebellion from a young age and rebuilding an entire government after the fall of the Empire. _And_ according to what Rey had read, she was also a princess. " _Princess_ Leia Organa?"

Ben shrugged, like it was nothing. Because it was. She was just his mom to him, her titles meant different sides of the woman he knew. He preferred just Mom.

"If she's a princess...does that make you a prince?" Rey ventured to ask.

Ben chuckled. "I guess technically, but it's kind of hard to be prince of a planet that no longer exists." Realizing his words sounded cold, he backed up. "The Empire destroyed Alderaan, my mother's home planet and where I would have been considered a prince of the ruling family. But I'm from Chandrila and I decided against a political life a long time ago."

"So you smuggle instead."

"Just me and my dad. And Chewie," Ben added.

"I can't say I blame you. I couldn't imagine...politics don't really make sense to me."

Ben got to his feet to check on their hyperjump status. "Tell me about it," he said good naturedly before he disappeared through to the cockpit.

* * *

Rey had indeed found new clothes on the hauler so she wouldn't be meeting a Senator (and princess!) as well as her hero in the dirty rags she wore on Jakku. She had on a thick, quilted vest and clean trousers and while she didn't feel fit to meet royalty, Ben didn't put on anything other than his dark leather vest to go visit his parents so she matched him at least.

They parked the _Falcon_ on a special level of the spaceport and took BB8 through security measures to a speeder that brought them across the city. Rey was wide eyed and slack jawed at everything she saw. There was a mixture of technology and flora and not a speck of sand in sight.

The speeder brought them up, up, up higher than Rey had ever been in an open air vehicle and stopped at the high balcony of Leia's quarters while staying in Republic City. Ben got out first and Rey handed BB8 over. He set the droid down, who beeped a thanks, and then offered his hand to Rey. She accepted, sliding her smaller but no-less rough and calloused hand against his and used his help to step out of the speeder.

Ben didn't step back when she got out of the speeder, leaving her near the edge with a fatal drop just inches behind her but she didn't feel the least bit worried. Hands still together, she found him looking at her quizzically again, as if trying to figure him out. She actually allowed herself to look at him, his face full of youth, eyes full of life, and yes there indeed _were_ a small number of braids hidden in his dark hair.

The moment grew long but was broken by the arrival of Ben's parents.

"Ben, you made it," Leia Organa said, her voice kind and full of love.

Ben stepped back from Rey and turned, dropping her hand after another beat and walked down the landing platform toward his mother. He had to stoop down to hug her, but he embraced her warmly, trying to make up for the year since he'd last seen her.

Rey hovered halfway down the platform, not wanting to intrude and also a little star struck at the grey haired man standing beside Leia, knowing he was Han Solo. _The_ Han Solo.

After letting go of Leia, Ben assured Han that the _Falcon_ was safe and briefly hugged his father as well.

BB8 beeped to show his importance and Leia chuckled and leaned down to pat the droid on the head. "My, my, what an adventure you've had."

Han clamped his hand on Ben's shoulder and then nodded with a furrowed brow at Rey. Realizing attention was on her, the scavenger from Jakku stepped forward.

"Hello," she said, voice a little shaky. "I'm Rey."

"Rey," Leia repeated warmly, taking the younger woman's hands in her own and giving her a good long look. "Ben told us you helped retrieve the _Falcon_ and that you found BB8."

"I did," Rey said, already feeling at ease. She wondered if it was because Leia was strong with the Force like Ben had said. "It was...a chance in a lifetime. Mr. Solo," she turned then to Han, who raised his eyebrows at the formal title, "your ship is beautiful. I've never flown anything that felt so natural before."

"You f—you let her fly?" Han turned to Ben, who just held up his hands in surrender.

"There were pirates! And only two of us. And you know the turret is a blasted pain. And she's...an amazing pilot."

"Force users typically are," Leia said as simply as commenting on the weather.

Rey raised her eyebrows, knowing fully well that Ben hadn't told his mother about her Force abilities. She'd been there when he spoke to his parents about coming to Republic City. "How did you…"

"I told her what I could," Ben said. "But I think I just gave her more questions than answers."

Leia smiled and gently put Rey's hand on the crook of her arm. "Are you hungry? Let's get to know each other over some dinner."

The two women walked inside, heads bowed together as if they'd known each other for years, leaving the two Solos standing on the balcony.

"Leave it to you to hijack my vacation," Han said before ruffling Ben's hair and pointing to that droid. "Let's get you where you belong, hey, roundy?"

BB8 protested the nickname but he followed Han and Ben into the building.

* * *

Rey and Ben stayed on Hosnian Prime for two more days. For most of the time Rey and Leia walked the floating gardens or spoke in the calming meditation room in Leia's quarters. Ben wasn't privy to the Force conversations, but he did manage to sneak her away from his mother the second night they were there.

He rented a speeder and took her away from the city to the encroaching forests and some of the less groomed gardens. Rey couldn't get over all the green and the variety of flowers. She touched everything. Every leaf, every petal, every new shape she wanted to feel.

And the air was thick with moisture, unlike anything on Jakku, not even when the bi-yearly storm passed through like a nightmare. Here, everything was soft and full of life.

After spending a good amount of time rushing from plant to plant, tree to tree, even running her hands over the short scrubby grass, Rey got to her feet, eyes glistening, smile wide. "I didn't think there was this much green in the whole galaxy," she said, breathless.

Ben—who had been quietly following her, completely enthralled with every new thing she found exciting—smiled and shook his head, loosening his arms from their crossed position. "This isn't even half of it." He stepped beside her and lay his arm across her shoulders, pointing to the stars. "There are entire jungle planets with leaves bigger than me and waterfalls that can deafen you. There's a whole universe out there."

Rey tilted her head back and tried to imagine it. She didn't actually know what a waterfall was, but she made it up in her head. The stars twinkled reminding her of a future just waiting to be taken into her hands. It took her closing her eyes and focusing, reaching out with the Force like Leia had showed her—one of the easiest things to do when you were a Force user and something Leia insisted would help her decide what to do with her life from here on out—to realize the closeness of Ben. It wasn't just his body heat seeping into her side or the way she felt his eyes on her, but she could _feel him_ in the Force. He was right in saying he had no way to tap into the Force, but she could see him like a beacon, a being of light and love. It was overwhelming and she retreated back into herself.

She stepped forward, out of Ben's touch gently, and felt a chill when his hand swiped down her spine as she moved. "I'd like to see that." She hadn't quite decided her exact stance on whether or not she would return to Jakku, but right now she was experiencing so many new things that it was difficult to think about the past.

Twisting around on her heel, she faced Ben. "How many planets have you been to?"

"Oh." He made a show of thinking hard about it. "I can't even say. Not all of them, but a lot."

"I want to see all of them," she said, not exactly expressing all of her desires but the thought, the implications hung in the air between them.

He looked at her like she was a star herself, something beautiful and majestic. He couldn't help it. She was unlike anyone he'd met across all of those planets he'd visited and it wasn't just because of her connection to the Force. There was just something about _her_ that he couldn't shake, nor did he want to.

Fully aware of what he felt like when he was with her, Rey took his hand and tugged him back to their awaiting speeder. "Come on, let's see more of the city. And I'm starving."

Ben laughed. "We quite literally just ate an hour ago."

Rey threw her head back and laughed as if that was the silliest notion she'd ever heard, her hand warm in his. "And I grew up on a planet where food didn't exist. Can you blame me for wanting to eat?"

"Not at all," Ben said with his own chuckle as their hands parted and he got behind the controls of the speeder.

Her smile faded but the dimple in her cheek was there, taunting him but he kept his hands to himself and started the engine, turning the speeder back toward the city.

* * *

On their third night on Hosnian Prime, the four of them ate another meal together. Rey, as always, ate way more than one would expect someone of her size to be able to eat. She had no shame in the amounts she ate, though she had garnered a few table manners after their first dinner. Like no licking plates and using forks and knives.

Rey had gotten over her idealization of Han Solo and they talked shop during dinner, and he recounted a few of his favorite stories. Ben and Leia had their own quiet conversation as the others were caught up in a world of excitement and debauchery.

"She's quite special," Leia told her son. "How strange that Luke never found her."

"Maybe because she was so isolated."

"Perhaps." Leia sighed and leaned a little closer. "Are you going to take her to him? She has a lot of power and she told me about how she lost control and hurt you."

Ben absentmindedly rubbed the small scar he could feel on his scalp. "It was an accident. She didn't even know she could use the Force before then."

"I know. But that simple act still haunts her. She doesn't want to do that again. Lose control I mean."

Ben knew that. She'd told him as much. "I won't make her go to Luke's. I won't make her do anything."

Leia patted his hand. "I know. But you can at least talk to her about it. You will, won't you?"

"I don't know anything about the Force. Why me?"

His mother looked at him with wisdom of years and the knowledge of a mother knowing her son better than he knew himself. "I think you know why, Ben," she said cryptically, squeezing his hand and then running her fingers through his hair, tucking some behind his ear.

"I missed your cryptic messages, Mom," Ben said good naturedly but with a little bit of sass.

Leia made a face at him and then continued eating.

The evening faded and while Han took Leia out to an operatic concert, Ben and Rey stayed in the apartment. Rey walked out to the balcony, running her fingers along the smooth leaves of the small hanging plants and looking over the city with a content heart.

Ben joined her after a while, leaning his tall frame against the bannister, back to the city so he could look down and see her face in the light of the setting sun. "Was thinking of leaving tomorrow. My dad _did_ come here for a vacation. I'm kind of crashing it."

"I'm here too," Rey said, though she hadn't spent nearly as much time with Han Solo as she'd expected. She was still delighted to have met him and to know him, but there was something intrinsically special about Leia Organa. "I'm also crashing."

"Yeah, a little bit," Ben said, barely resisting the urge to chuckle at the fact. But now, now was the thing he wanted to ask because he knew it was the right thing to do, but he also wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer for selfish reasons. He was rarely selfish as everything in his life was him and his dad. _It's just you and me, kid_ , Han often told him growing up, even though Ben also had a close relationship with his mom. There was just something about him that was Han Solo's son and he wouldn't change it for the world.

Rey beat him to it. "You want to ask me something."

"Are you using the Force?"

"Leia...your mother has been teaching me some very basic things about it. I can't help but use them. But know that I wouldn't...I won't intrude on your privacy."

"Thanks. And yeah, I was going to ask...what now?"

She turned a little, standing up from where she had rested her forearms against the bannister. "What do you mean?"

"I mean...are you going back to Jakku? Or did you want to go to Luke's temple school and get some proper Jedi lessons? Or stay with my mom? I'm sure you could find work here and she could train you when she isn't with the Senate."

Rey's frown deepened a bit with each suggestion. She'd been thinking a lot about this ever since that first night here, where Leia explained what it meant to be a Force user and a Jedi and where she could find her place. "I don't know if I need to go back to Jakku," she said, the words in themselves freeing just as much as going off planet was. "At least not right now."

"Okay," Ben nodded, trying hard not to cross his arms. He didn't want to come off as uncaring and guarded, even though all he wanted to do was take that stance for that very reason: to protect himself against whatever decision she made.

"And honestly I don't want to intrude on your mother's life any longer," she confessed. "She's been lovely, and I would like to visit her again, but she has a very busy life and I don't want to take away any of her free time that she has."

It was noble of her and a far cry from the slightly rude desert scavenger Ben had meet just days before. "So the Jedi temple then?"

She frowned a little. "Does it have to be just one answer?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean...yes, I feel like visiting the Jedi temple and learning about the Force and how it affects me and my life would be good. I don't want to lose control again." She took one shaky breath and situated herself more in front of him than before, tilting her head back to look at him in the eye. "And yet what if I wanted to stay with you?" With one bold move, she lifted her hand and gently rested it against his chest, above his heart.

"Oh." He was a little taken aback, not expecting it. He had readied himself for her choice to leave and begin her new life of freedom from Jakku but he'd never dreamed that she'd also wanted him to be a part of that.

"Can't I have both?" she finished. Her heart picked up speed to match his own growing staccato.

He didn't know how it would work, but he thought perhaps it didn't really matter in the moment. "Hopefully yes," he said, allowing himself _finally_ to gently run his fingers across her cheek, like he'd been wanting to do for what felt like countless days but was really only less than a week.

Rey smiled, stomach twisting in nerves but _good_ nerves, and she found herself wanting to kiss him and was pretty sure he felt the same. He leaned down and she started pushing herself up on her toes when—

"Excuse me! I'm detecting a rapid increase in heartbeats," the med droid announced its presence, making Rey jump back like a startled animal. With Leia's strenuous past and health issues, she had a medical droid set to emergency protocol if she needed it.

"We're fine," Ben said, reluctantly leaving Rey and walking over to the droid to show it that they were functioning properly. "See?"

Once satisfied, the droid went back indoors and Ben turned back to Rey, who was trying to smother a laugh with her hand but failing. He joined her and their laughter echoed throughout the balcony, releasing tension and bringing them back down to earth.

"If we're leaving tomorrow I should get some sleep," Rey said. She could sleep anywhere except on too-soft surfaces so she found it difficult to sleep in the room that Leia had made up for her. Most of the time she tossed and turned until she ended up on the floor, hugging a pillow.

"Okay," Ben said, making no move to stop her and watching her leave his sight. He stayed out there for a while, thinking about what had happened, what it meant and how this whole thing was going to work.

* * *

"How long will it take to get to the temple?" Rey asked once they were in the _Falcon_ in hyperspace.

"To Yavin 4? Um...a day, maybe more," Ben said, triple checking all of the controls before he got the ship into autopilot. It was quieter in the _Falcon_ now that the little droid had been delivered. "We've got to jump into a couple different hyperlanes to get there."

For this trip, Rey wasn't scared about traveling so far from the world she had grown up on. Among her talks with Leia, she had come to a realization about her parents that she had been unable to allow herself to believe before then. They had left her. They _left_ her on purpose. They weren't coming back.

It hadn't been quite as sad as she'd thought it would be. Yes, she cried upon the revelation, but then just hours later Ben had taken her to see the forests creeping near the edge of the sprawling Republic City and she had been able to fully enjoy herself there. It hadn't stained her heart and soul like she worried it may have.

"It's a jungle planet," he added, which made her smile as she followed him through the corridor to the lounge.

Things between them had been the same light and easy companionship as before, even after the near kiss back in Republic City. Rey was inexperienced in all those matters and wasn't quite sure where to go from here, but Ben didn't seem to mind, nor was he forcing them into any sort of romantic setting. To prove this, they spent a few hours playing holochess and eating fresh Hosnian Prime produce with barely a touch between them, but their eyes occasionally softened toward one another.

Rey went to one of the smaller holds for quiet so she could try meditating, since Leia had told her it was important for anyone who used the Force to do so daily to balance and focus themselves. While she was doing that, Ben dove into the HoloNet trying to map out possible next gigs. He tried not to think about if he would be working these alone or with Rey at his side like she'd said she wanted, but rather just combed through them as if he were going to work them with his dad. It was the best way to go at it.

Time within hyperspace was weird. The ship and inhabitants still went about like everything was normal, even as you traveled at speeds unfathomable to the bare human mind. But it felt a bit different anyhow. It made you tired faster, since there was a stagnant quality to the air.

Ben saw Rey briefly when they both struggled up from their deep thoughts for food, though they didn't say much to each other and both went to different bunks to sleep. There were small bunks for any extra crew members besides the main bed chamber, and Rey had taken one of those as her own.

The air settled in the ship and Ben fell asleep pretty quickly. He woke with a jolt, out of sorts because the ship was at the same illumination as it was when he went to sleep. He could have been sleeping for thirty minutes or seven hours and he couldn't tell. There was noise and banging coming from the corridor. In his soft sleeping clothes, he stumbled into the hall and followed the sound to Rey's door.

* * *

Rey fell asleep quickly, the bunks in the _Falcon_ hard and uncomfortable for most but they were perfect for her. It had been strange meditating within hyperspace, but she hadn't tried reaching out with the Force, she just closed her eyes and breathed and didn't think. She must have hovered lightly because when she finally opened her eyes she fell a few inches to the floor and bruised her leg.

By that time her stomach, now accustomed to food, growled and she made her way to the galley, where she found Ben making himself food too. They didn't say much and she made her way to her chosen sleeping area. Everything had been fine, but almost as soon as she entered a deep sleep, things got bad.

She felt a chill and was conscious that she was asleep which was disconcerting. She felt darkness creeping up behind her but couldn't turn. She struggled and could only stay still, helpless as memories poured it. It was as if someone had unstopped a dam and suddenly things she'd forgotten came pushing through.

Her parents, they weren't nice people. They had argued a lot and pushed her around more than once. One time, her father had shoved her so hard she'd split her cheek open and that's why she had a slight scar there on her right cheek.

They drank a lot and the sound of their raised voices made her want to cry and curl into a ball. She did that a lot as a child. It felt natural.

Their ship chugged along but it wasn't a new model. And they blamed her for everything that went wrong.

Landing on Jakku, they'd kept her locked on the ship while they surveyed the outpost. When they came back to get her, she was so hungry and she'd been locked in a dark hold compartment for almost a whole day. They dragged her out and offered her up to a bloated looking alien, who sneered at her and took her, yanking her by her arm.

Despite their hardships they were still her family. Rey was small and hungry and angry, five years old and with no control. She yelled "Come back!" as her new _owner_ pulled her back. She yelled and reached out for the ship. She yelled and narrowed her eyes against the sun. The ship struggled to get much higher. It struggled and she was lifted by her middle, kicking and screaming now, arms now both outstretched.

The ship struggled and finally got _free,_ shooting off into the sky for mere moments before exploding into a fiery ball.

* * *

"Rey!" Ben yelled, banging on the door. It wasn't opening, no matter how many override codes he punched in. He could hear things slamming around inside and his first thought was that someone was attacking her. But they were the only people here. Could it be the Force? Could people attack another being through the Force? He didn't know enough about it to make any sense of it and he so he grit his teeth and slammed his hands against the flat door, calling out her name in hopes that maybe she would hear him.

The noise got exponentially worse. He could hear _her_ now, calling out nonsensical words. Knowing he could fix whatever damage he did, he pried off the door lock mechanism and short circuited it with a spark and a puff of smoke.

The door slid to the side. As expected, the few things Rey had put in her room were flying around, banging against walls and nearly hitting Ben as he rushed into the room. Rey was twisting and turning on the bed as if battling an invisible force. Which, as far as Ben knew, she could be.

Not being equipped to deal with this sort of situation, he batted aside a few tools and went to the bunk, perching on the edge and gently taking Rey's shoulders in his hands. His touch seemed to have an instant impact, as she stopped writhing though she still cried out and her face was contorted into pain and fear.

"Rey," he said, again and again, caressing her face with his hand and trying to wake her as gently as he could.

She woke suddenly, with a gasp like she'd been suffocating, and everything flying in the air dropped. Her limbs stopped flailing and her eyes flew open. Sitting up, she looked around with wild eyes, unseeing, panicked and terrified until her hands landed on Ben's soft shirt and it was, once again, like his touch grounded her.

Her eyes flooded with tears and they poured unrestrained down her face. Her mouth gaped open, unable to form words. Ben had no idea what just happened or what he could do to help. He felt powerless and could only hold her face in his hands as she crumbled.

She got onto her knees and threw her arms around his shoulders, holding tightly and burying her face in his neck. He held onto her tightly with one arm around her torso, the other hand cradling her neck as she sobbed against his shoulder.

He could detect no physical injuries, but he'd never seen her react this badly to anything and truth be told it scared him a bit. Scared _for_ her and wondering what the hell had happened to make her react this way. But he said nothing besides the occasional "You're okay, you're safe," and stroked her hair and rubbed her back.

They stayed that way for a long time. Minutes stretched into meaningless passages of time until Rey stopped shaking and sobbing. Her hold on him loosened slowly, a millimeter a minute until she sat back on her feet and wiped her face with her hands. Ben's hands stayed on her, resting on her upper arms.

"What was that?" he asked softly once he felt like he could speak and it wouldn't break her. She was still trembling slightly under his hands.

Rey wiped her damp hands on her sleeping pants and shook her head. "I…" her voice was small. "I don't know. I think…" She thought about it, the images, the feelings, the sound of the explosion. She felt sick and appalled. "I think it was a memory."

Ben pushed hair back from where it stuck to her face and brushed his thumb across her cheekbone. "You don't have to talk about it," he said, remembering the last time he'd seen anything close to this sort of emotional outburst from her. And that was highly mild compared to this. "If you don't want to."

She sniffled and shook her head. "I can't keep this to myself," she said, wiping her eyes before clasping her hands together in a slightly nervous tick. "It was my parents." She spoke among choking breaths and fresh tears falling. "I remember them leaving me. I hated them and I hated them for leaving me. They were horrible people. They were my parents. They sold me for gods damn drinking money and I forgot. How do you _forget_ something like that?"

Anger toward herself rose in her eyes and Ben felt his heart breaking a little at every word that spilled from her mouth after being repressed for so long.

She started to shake her head then and reached out for him, gripping onto his arms as the rest came back and her stomach rolled. "And I think," she shook and choked back a sob, squeezing her eyes shut, "I think I killed them." The sob came to the surface then. "I was so angry and I was reaching for the ship and it exploded."

She could say no more and Ben hugged her to him again, holding her close and closing his eyes, trying to think of what to say, what to do. She clung to him, her arms around his torso, grabbing fistfulls of his shirt and wiping her tears on his shoulder.

"How can I…? What do I do…?" She cried against him and eventually she fell quiet and stopped shaking as the shock of it all processed. She had no idea what to do, how to feel. Was that real? Or was it a test from the Force? It felt real, the emotions swelling in her chest.

Once the room had fallen into silence, Ben pulled back a little and cupped her face in his hand. "Maybe...maybe Luke can help. Maybe you didn't see what you thought you saw."

She knew he was just trying to see the positive and she couldn't blame him for it even though she knew what she _felt_. She didn't want to argue. She gripped the front of his shirt with one hand and the other slowly made its way to his face. Tentatively brushing over his hair, his face. "I don't want to go," she said, feeling small and childish but not really having the emotional expanse to care right now.

"Rey," Ben said softly. Especially after this, he thought that bringing her to Luke's was definitely a necessity. To protect her from whatever _she_ could do. Control was everything with the Force. He knew that much. And he wanted to see her safe and happy and balanced.

She shook her head in protest, eyes searching his face for understanding. "I don't want to go if it means you leave me." Her voice cracked at the words, the wounds of her parents' abandonment fresh and bleeding deep in her soul. A stray tear squeezed out of one eye. "I don't want you to leave me."

Ben shook his own head a teeny bit and his hand slipped to the back of her neck. "I won't. I won't leave you."

"You won't?"

"I'll stay." Unorthodox but Luke was his uncle. There had to be room for him to be at Rey's side. "I won't leave you. I don't...I don't think I could ever do that."

These weren't words he was saying to appease her. He meant them, even though he'd never expressed them. He'd been quietly making ready to be on his own while she was at Luke's but he was never happy about that. But this? This was how he really felt.

Rey's traumatized face grew softer as the words sunk in and and her breathing steadied. She rested her hand on his face and stared at him in amazement. He was the first person who had ever wanted to stay by her side, who cared about her and listened to her and only wanted the best for her. She didn't know what to do with all of that and her own emotions blossoming in her chest.

She blinked once, twice, the smallest of smiles alighting on her face and then she kissed him. There was nothing about this she knew how to do except that she wanted to kiss him so she did. Ben was too busy trying to process her trauma and the fact that he was being kissed to notice. And it was _Rey_ so he wouldn't have cared anyway.

He tilted his head and deepened the kiss just a bit, holding her close to him and wanting nothing more than to keep kissing her but knowing fully well that she was exhausted and had just been through a whole ordeal.

Foreheads resting together, they took a moment and Rey smiled at him as brightly as she could manage while feeling like she'd just spent the last six hours in a sandstorm with no shelter. He squeezed her hip and she scooted a bit away from him so she could sit with her legs dangling off the bunk like him. She laid her hand over his and laid her fingers between his.

"I really need to sleep," she said after a minute or two.

"We've got a while til we're at Yavin 4," Ben said, not knowing just how long but it was at least long enough for another try at a full night's sleep.

She nodded and he slowly got to his feet. He didn't want to leave her and he had no plans to, but he didn't want to presume anything, especially after such a traumatic experience. She didn't let him go, their hands connected between them. "I've never actually slept next to another person before," she said without a single hesitation, "but maybe it would help."

Ben took in a small breath and let it out slowly before he smiled and nodded. "Maybe. I have a bunk made for two."

"Specifically?" she asked, getting to her feet. They relaced their fingers together, palms touching this time.

"Not me specifically. She came that way."

Ignoring the fallen objects, they walked down the corridor to the main cabin bunk and the lights dimmed once Rey got settled on the double-wide bunk. Ben was very similar to her in the fact that he could fall asleep anywhere, no matter how soft or hard the beds were. She scooted toward the outer edge and he stayed near the wall. She didn't want to feel suffocated. Her body relaxed in his presence and she was so mentally and physically exhausted that she curled onto her side, tucking her head into the crook of her arm and falling asleep quickly. Ben stayed awake for a while, making sure she was calm before he situated himself into a comfortable position. In her sleep, Rey snuggled in close to him, not quite cuddling him but still reaching toward him.

Ben fell asleep with a smile on his face.


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything about Jedi training and her relationship with Ben is new to Rey. And she's enjoying all of it. As things in the galaxy start to lean toward a possible war, the serenity on Yavin 4 is broken as Ben takes the lead on trying to help the Mandalorians and Rey goes on a personal journey to finish her lightsaber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the second part! There is a lot more angst than the first part (I mean this one _is_ almost twice as long) but there's also loads of fluff. Some deleted scenes in the end notes.
> 
> The rating also went up because uhhhh I went a bit explicit in the middle there without meaning to. 
> 
> This second part took two painstaking weeks to write. I'm sorry if there are any typos! 
> 
> There are some more nods to canon, and I mix in some Rebels with it but you don't need to have seen the show to make sense of it! Hope y'all enjoy it!

The main building on Yavin 4 was the temple, with ruddy brown walls and a conservatory that let in sunlight and was void of plants except those that grew up through the cracks on the floor. Rey had spent hours every day here for the last three weeks, meditating alone or with the other dozen or so students. Today she was alone, save for Luke Skywalker himself.

They sat, hovering above the earth, stretching out with their feelings into the Force. Rey could feel all of the lifeforms close to the temple: the other students, the wild animals, insects and the plants, and, specifically, Ben Solo. She could always find him. But she felt other things too. The swell of the nearby river after rainfall overnight; the power of the wind tugging the canopy; the animals whose life was leaving them, animals who were being born, or were long dead and feeding the earth. There was a whole cycle of balance and she could feel it all.

Without a definite end to the session, both master and student drew back within themselves and settled on the ground. They stood, dusting off their trousers and Luke gave Rey a warm smile.

"You certainly have a strong connection to the Force," Luke told her, affirming his initial response to her arriving weeks before.

Rey knew that he was saying that to give her an opening. So she could ask him about her parents and the memory or vision she'd had on the _Falcon_ , but she didn't want to face that today. Instead, she decided to ask something else. "Do believe in destiny, Master Skywalker?"

"Yes," Luke replied. "But I also believe that you are in control of your destiny. Some things are unavoidable but most can be decided by you and you alone. I learned that the hard way."

Rey gave him half a smile and watched him leave the conservatory to go outside. Rey lingered in the building, walking through the rest of the building. Luke kept many old Jedi artifacts in the temple for teaching purposes. She ran her hands over various weapons and ancient tech that hadn't functioned in decades or centuries. There were books as well, but she couldn't read them.

She was lost in the memories and emotions she could feel when she touched the items that she didn't even notice someone else walk into the room until they cleared their throat, jolting her to the present. She twisted around and saw an unfamiliar face: dark brown skin, short black hair, blue pants, brown tunic, and a lightsaber hanging at his belt.

"You're new," he said, pointing a finger at her, as if there was anyone else in the room. There wasn't.

"I'm Rey," she introduced, reaching toward him through the Force instinctively. "You're one of Luke's students."

"Yeah. I'm Finn. Just got back from a mission in the way, way, _way_ Outer Rim." He put his hand over his lightsaber like it was a blaster. She could tell that he was proud of it and that it was fairly new in his possession.

"Well, it's nice to meet you," she said, trying to move past.

He didn't let her. Not in a mean way, but he seemed excited to meet the newest student under Skywalker. "How long have you been here?"

"A few weeks."

"That's all?" She could feel him reaching toward her through the Force and his eyebrows raised. "You're strong."

"Thank you," Rey said, not really understanding the need to be strong or the supposed prowess it held. She didn't want to be strong with the Force if it meant people put her on a pedestal and assumed things of her. She just wanted to be in control, to be herself. And being here, she was finally figuring out who that was.

"So do you uh...have a boyfriend? Do you have a cute boyfriend?"

Rey raised her eyebrows. "Yes," she said automatically, and then she scowled. "Not that it's any of your business." She crossed her arms. "Is this how you greet everyone you meet?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. I've been told I don't have a social conduct filter."

Rey could say the same about herself, but her lack of social etiquette was mostly being too quiet when entering a room and eating with her hands. Before she got angry and defensive, she took a deep breath. "I guess it was nice to meet you, but I have somewhere to be. You just missed Master Luke. He's probably out on the dunes with the others."

Finn stepped aside and let her pass this time. He gave a little wave to her retreating back. "See ya around!"

Rey stepped outside, the ground firm but with some give, covered in flattened grass. Ben had been right, the moon was jungle covered, with even more green than she had ever been able to imagine in her mind when living on Jakku. She took a moment to appreciate the humid air, the lack of sand, and the feeling of life all around her.

There were small huts dotted around the space here on the clearing, which was where the students slept and kept their things. Rey shared a hut with Jannah, who was Luke's daughter. She was about Rey's age, maybe a year or two older, and she didn't wave around the fact that her Master was also her dad. She didn't get special treatment and she was the closest thing Rey had ever had to a friend in her entire life.

Down by the riverbank, half a mile away, Rey knew that a number of students were training combat with Luke. Luke was not here to create a soldier army; he often talked about the failings of the Jedi and how he was trying to remedy that and bring this new generation toward a better future. He believed in balance above all. On one hand he taught meditation as the greatest tool to understanding the Force, and on the other, he also taught combat, specifically the Jedi combat skills to use with a lightsaber.

Down a rocky sloped path from the top of the clearing was a large, flat expanse of a clifftop which housed numerous ships and also a storehouse for food and supplies. The ships were of many makes and models, from many worlds. And they were there for use, not to be a graveyard.

Luke believed that connection, not isolation was the truest way to find balance within Force users. They were connected to the galaxy in such a heightened sense that stealing away their connection with their past, their families, tarnished their ability to stay grounded. So he encouraged students to visit their families when they needed to, or to bring them to Yavin 4. He also didn't steal babies away from their families. He took on students who were older and in a state of mind to choose for themselves if they wanted to be taught by him.

It was freeing to have so much choice. Rey had a lot of power inside of her and that had scared her, until she got here. She'd learned what it was, what it felt like, and she felt much better about using the Force now. There were still a few dark moments in her past that haunted her—hurting Ben when she first used the Force, or that nightmare about her parents' deaths—but as Luke said, there was light and dark in every person. What you chose to do with that light and dark would show your true path in life.

She would have to face that soon, but right now, she had one thing in mind.

Pebbles of gravel slid under her feet as she walked down the sloping path to the shipyard. The _Falcon_ sat there, dwarfing most of the other, lighter ships. Rey turned her face up toward the sun streaming through the clouds, allowing herself to be at peace. By the time she made it to the bottom, she could hear the sounds of voices and the metallic tapping of tools being used on ships.

There was a three winged transport, painted with reds and yellows, with some panels popped off the back engine area and Rey headed there through the various other parked ships. Her step grew lighter the closer she got.

"Ben!" she called once she was in shouting distance. It took a moment for him to poke his head around the side of the ship. Her face split into a smile and his matched hers, moments later. He raised a hand to wave before ducking back to finish what he'd been working on.

As she got closer, Rey heard the voice of Iruc, who was from the mid levels of Coruscant. He was a Twi'lek with pale blue skin and was one of the younger students. He and Ben looked to have been working on his ship for some time. There were a number of parts taken out and placed on the stone ground and both men were dirty with grease and oil from the engine parts.

"I hope I'm not interrupting," Rey said, leaning a hand against the rear of the ship. She swept her eyes over the parts laid out, cataloguing them in her head and thinking how many portions of food she could get for each. It was a habit that would probably take years to shake. "I mean, I obviously am, I just hope it's not at any important juncture."

Iruc slid out from underneath on a hoverboard, his lekku hanging off the sides. "Nothing I can't put back together."

"I'm more used to taking things apart but I guess that's just the opposite. I can stay and help, if you'd like."

Ben said nothing, though Rey felt his eyes on her as he wiped his hands off on a cloth. Her body always had a mind of its own whenever she was near him. Her skin grew warm and she wanted very badly to be alone with him at any given moment when she wasn't focusing on her training.

Either Icur could sense her desire to drag Ben away, or he really wanted to finish his ship himself. "It's okay. Ben helped me find the problem, I should be able to put it together myself." He sat up, the hoverboard dipping, before he got to his feet and offered Ben an arm in thanks.

"Any time," Ben replied, grasping the Twi'lek's forearm for a moment before turning to Rey. He nodded his head to the _Falcon_ and took a few steps away from Icur's ship.

"See you later, Icur!" Rey called over her shoulder as she nearly jogged to fall in step with Ben. She slid her palm into his, leaning against his arm.

Ben chuckled, curling his fingers around hers. "You act as if I didn't see you just yesterday," he said, amused.

"Every night and morning feels like a lifetime," Rey dramatized. She got into the habit of spending her mornings and first half of the day focused on her Force training. Sometimes things came up at night as well, but for the most part, that was her day. Afterward, she would find Ben and they would talk or explore parts of the moon or fly the _Falcon_. They had recently found old remains from past rebels bases and even older Jedi temple ruins.

He squeezed her hand and looked down at her briefly. "I know what you mean."

Unable to contain herself until they reached the _Falcon_ , Rey tugged Ben around to the side of a boxy shuttle and crowded him back against the ship. "I can always feel you in the Force," she said, confessing for the first time of the fact. She leaned up on her toes and her body sang where it pressed against his.

"Oh," Ben said, which was his natural response to anything Rey said that held any emotional weight. It gave him a moment to process her words. His lips slid into a lazy smile and he cupped a hand around her neck, fingers tangling in her loose hair. "Is this the part where I apologize for existing?"

She laughed lightly, her fingertips gripping his shirt. "Please don't apologize. It's the best distraction I could ask for."

She didn't even need to pull him down, he was already leaning and pressed his warm, inviting lips to her own. Rey didn't so much as melt in his arms but instead she grew insistent and certain and needy. Her arms went about his neck and one of his slid around her entire torso, pulling her as close as physically possible. His other hand stayed tangled in her hair, though he spared his thumb to run down the length of her neck, giving her warm, electric shivers down to her very core.

After an inordinate amount of time, Rey settled back to her heels, her entire body aflutter and she slowly opened her eyes. Hers were sparkling with mischievous intent and Ben's with a softer kind of desire. She grinned at him, beyond happy to be back in his presence, and brushed her small thumb over his lips because she could.

"Hi," she said in proper greeting.

His hands settled around her waist. "Hello," he said, just as cheerily. "I could get used to this." _This_ being Rey's insistent need and _want_ to kiss him all the time. It hadn't stopped once they started, weeks ago on the _Falcon_. Once she got a taste of it, she wanted more. The closeness, the connection, the feel of _Ben_. It was like a missing piece had been fit into her life.

"I have no intention of stopping," Rey said confidently. She kissed him again, pulling him down toward her and nearly toppling the both of them. With muffled laughter, she controlled herself, took his hand and they finished their walk to the _Falcon_.

The ship had been getting some much-needed looking after. Ben was going through all the programming and inner workings systematically and making sure the ship was in tip-top shape for whatever its next adventure was. Han and Leia were still enjoying their time together and Ben couldn't help but think that perhaps his father _would_ retire shortly. Chewie still had his paws on the hauler but he'd parked it above Kashyyyk, the Wookiee's homeworld. The galaxy had some semblance of peace.

For the most part.

Just two days after arriving on Yavin 4, a shining sleek Naboo style yacht had arrived on the moon. Ben had recognized it immediately.

"Uncle Lando!" he'd exclaimed as the older man came off the ship, sleek cane and signature flourishing cape tossed about his shoulders.

"Ben, son, did you grow?" Lando teased as the two embraced briefly. Then Lando had set his eyes on Rey, who was in the shipyard at the time too. "And who is this lovely flower?"

"Lando, this is Rey," Ben introduced. "Rey, this is my uncle, Lando Calrissian."

Rey had stepped forward and found herself getting a kiss on the hand like she was some kind of princess. She found it charming and hilarious at the same time. "You're Jannah's father, aren't you?" Rey asked, having spent two nights with her very talkative roommate. "Master Luke's husband."

"The one and only. I also go by General, Destroyer of the Death Star II, war hero, fashion trend setter, et cetera, et cetera."

Rey laughed. "It's great to meet you."

"And you, my dear." Lando glanced between her and Ben, sensing something there between them before he waved his hand. "I have news for Luke. Is he up at the temple?"

"He is," Rey had said and she and Ben had walked with him up the slope and through the huts and training students. She had left the three men to go find Jannah, and in the quiet of the temple, Lando's good attitude shadowed slightly.

"What is it, Lando?" Luke asked, gripping his husband's hand.

"Have you felt anything? In the Force?" Lando knew about as much about the Force as Han or Ben did. Just enough, but not enough to fully understand it.

"There's always unease in the Force. Peace is precarious."

"Is something going on?" Ben had asked. He had talked to Leia the previous day, letting her know they'd gotten to Yavin 4 safely, but hadn't spoken to her since. He knew that just because Han was on vacation didn't mean his mom would stop working, or that the galaxy would take a break.

Lando had shrugged and looked up at Ben. "Some unease in the Colonies. Neimodians and the Mandalorians."

Ben frowned deeply, crossing his arms. "That's...not a mixture you usually see. I thought the Mandalorians had been staying on planet, away from most conflicts."

"Yeah, for a couple decades now. Seems like they're starting to reach out. Or it's a rogue sect."

Luke frowned, sitting back in his seat and stroking his trimmed beard. "What of the Neimodians? They lost all, if not most, of their power when the Empire fell and the Trade Federation crumbled."

"They're getting back on their feet," Lando said, exasperated. "Using black methods though. Getting their hands back into the spice business. Slaves even."

Ben's frown deepened. "What's the conflict between them?"

Lando shrugged. "Dunno yet. Rumors spreading far and wide. A couple of skirmishes. It's getting tense out there though. Be lucky you're here in Yavin."

Luke had gotten deep into his thoughts then and Ben's mouth pressed to a serious thin line.

So yes, the peace of the universe would never be absolute, but there was no war. So spending leisure time together was not only acceptable but encouraged.

Rey had no family but the one she'd chosen. Which was Ben, and perhaps in the future, Luke as well. She had felt instantly close to Leia as well. And creating those bonds of connection was part of her training.

On the _Falcon_ , Rey felt comfortable as if it had been her home for her entire life. Ben cut fresh fruit from the trees and bushes of Yavin 4 and they ate and talked about what they'd do once Rey left the planet. She didn't know when it would happen, but Luke kept telling her that she would know. She'd feel it, deep in her gut.

"I really want a lightsaber," she said, after polishing off a small soft orange fruit with edible green seeds.

Ben arched an eyebrow. "Isn't that way of thinking greedy?"

"Says the smuggler with enough money to never have to work again," she said, tilting her head in his direction on the couch.

"Fair point."

"I've always had my staff and I like being able to defend myself," she continued. "I enjoy the combat training with Luke. He says I'm a natural. And I could always return and learn more later on."

"That's true. I could see it." He squinted his eyes at her and nodded. "Yep. Definitely. I may have to update my blaster so I don't feel so unprotected."

"I like your blaster," she protested.

He did too. It had been a gift from Lando. "But then again, you'll just have to be there to protect me." He grinned a little cheekily.

She flicked some extra moisture on her fingertips at him. "I will, but you don't have to say it like that. It's not going to be my job. I'll be there by your side because I want to be."

"And I want you to be," he said, reaching toward her. After a moment's pause, she interlaced her sticky fingers with his sticky fingers and it wasn't long before she crawled to his side of the couch and slid onto his lap, her knees sinking into the seam between the cushions. She pressed him back and kissed him lightly once with the sweet taste of fruit on their lips.

Hands still together, Ben lifted his free hand to her jaw, leaning up to kiss down her neck. Rey's breath quickly grew shallow and fast and she squeezed his hand, fisting the other in his shirt. Soft moans escaped her lips as did his whispered name. Ben's lips curved into a smile against her collarbone and while Rey floated in ecstasy, he guided her mouth down to his and kissed her long and hard.

Breaking her hold on his hand, she gripped his shoulder and tunneled her fingers through the soft hair at the back of his neck, her skin warming under his hands on her hips, her waist, sliding up her spine.

She forgot to breathe, having to wrench her lips away to pant as her lungs burned and her entire body felt electric. Foreheads nearly touching, they looked at each other in the dim cabin lighting, wanting and filled with desire. They had yet to go any farther than just about now. One, because Ben was attempting to be as gentlemanly as possible and making sure she felt comfortable enough to do so with someone she'd only known for a short time. And two, because of where they were. Ben didn't need to be told that it would be somewhat disrespectful to the atmosphere of the temple, and Rey had had to have the embarrassing talk of that exact thing with Luke once he realized how deep her feelings for Ben were.

But in that moment, briefly, Rey was ready to push all that aside and have him completely.

That is, until she felt a tremor in the Force.

Almost instantly her dizzy head cleared and she sat back on Ben's knees and tilted her head like she was trying to get a better signal.

Ben's hands fell from where they circled nearly her entire abdomen to rest on her hips. "What is it?"

"Something big," Rey said slowly. "Under the earth…" She reached out and felt not only the students and Luke but _it_. She scrambled off of Ben's lap, slamming her elbow into the table and hissing as pain echoed up her arm. "It's a leviathan worm."

Ben didn't know what that was, but the word leviathan was never good when put in front of a creature. "Kriff," he muttered, sitting there for a moment to get ahold of himself before he got to his feet as well, grabbed his blaster and raced after Rey outside.

Ben followed her up the rocky slope. "What's a leviathan worm?" he huffed.

"Giant worm!" Rey yelled over her shoulder. "Lives underground and grows and grows. It comes to the surface after three hundred years."

Ben didn't like the sound of that. He caught up with her quickly at the top of the path. Jannah appeared, toting what looked like a bowcaster similar to Chewie's and a long staff. She tossed the staff to Rey, who grabbed it, thankful for the familiar weight in her hands.

Ben frowned, eyes on the bowcaster. "Is that...Chewie's?" he asked.

His cousin smirked and shrugged a shoulder. "Maybe," she said, elbowing Ben in the ribs. "Isn't your blaster a gift from my dad?"

Ben held it out in comparison. "No offense to Lando but yours is better."

Jannah grinned and set the bowcaster against her shoulder as if they weren't about to fight a giant worm that could demolish the temple. Her ease was one Ben was familiar with; most Force users had it, and on the other hand, Han had it too, though his was just made up of pure determination and dumb luck and not because he could sense what may happen through the Force.

All the students, Ben and Luke convened before the temple building. Even Ben could hear the creature's roar and feel the ground shake now.

"How are we supposed to defeat this thing?" he asked, skidding to a halt, kicking up dust.

"We won't be killing it," Luke said. "It has thick skin and blasters won't harm it but we can use them and the Force to try to move it away from the temple."

At multiple students' exclamations, the Master shook his head and sighed. "This is its home, its natural habitat. If we destroy it, we run the risk of ruining the ecosystem of this moon. We just need to drive it away from the temple."

The ground shook once again, nearly throwing Ben off his feet. He met Rey's eyes and then glanced at his uncle. "Sure, that's not gonna be hard at all."

* * *

It was not easy. It took hours to turn the behemoth creature away from the temple and the grounds used by Luke and his students. It didn't move very fast, but it was frightening just because of its size and the massive rings of teeth. A couple trees near the outskirts of the temple's grounds were uprooted, but the buildings were all left intact.

There were few injuries, and none of them came from the worm. One of Ben's blaster bolts had ricocheted off the creature's skin and caught a Gotal on the shoulder. Another human student had broken their wrist scrambling over a fallen treetrunk. Most everyone had superficial scrapes and bruises from the romp through the forests.

Everyone came together in the conservatory of the temple, where Luke set and healed the Gotal's wrist and everyone checked for more serious wounds. There were none that were life threatening.

Those without blasters or lightsabers had primarily used the Force to try to connect with the beast and steer it away. The creature wasn't sentient, with very little intelligence beyond eating and the natural progression of its life. Rey was one who had done this, since her staff would have done nothing but felt like a light tap on the leviathan's side. She found it strange, but familiar. Jakku was known to be home to a number of large, underground worms and she had often had to deal with them and shoo them away from her AT-AT home. She didn't know if she'd ever used the Force on them before she knew what the Force was, but it was possible.

As Rey circled the conservatory, she was distracted talking with Finn, who had been at the head of the charge, lightsaber in hand. Ben was one of the last to enter the temple, always feeling slightly out of place, but welcome enough to walk inside. Luke was concentrating on the Gotal and Icur was tending to some superficial wounds with natural healing plants as opposed to the typical bacta-patches used by most of the galaxy.

Ben spotted Rey and while he'd never felt like their lives were truly in danger during the encounter, his heart still jumped in relief at the sight of her.

He walked around the edge of the conservatory, skirting around quietly and not-so-quietly talking Jedi in training. Rey looked up just as he got close, his hand automatically reaching toward her face, where a surface scrape was bright red against her tanned, freckled skin.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Rey cupped her hand around his and nodded. "I'm fine. You didn't get hit, did you?"

Blaster bolts had mostly just sunk into the worm's flesh, but a couple had bounced back. Ben had been lucky enough not to get hit. "Nope," he said, taking a quiet moment to rest their heads together before Finn interrupted, getting to his feet near them.

"So you're the cute boyfriend I take it," the Jedi said with his usual lack of filter.

Ben frowned with amusement and glanced from Rey to Finn. "I guess I am," he said cautiously.

Finn nodded enthusiastically. "Nice shooting. Not the part where you hit Yaffur but y'know, thanks."

Ben blinked. "Thanks. I think."

Rey chuckled, trying to smother the sound behind her hand. "I think everyone could use some food," she said, changing the subject. It was now almost completely dark. Ben was dragged away by her and they gathered supplies and brought them to the conservatory. They didn't usually eat inside the temple, but Luke didn't stop them as they handed out rations and everyone gratefully took some.

They all sat on the ground and ate and talked about the experience and listened to Luke's gentle review of their tactics. Most of it was positive, but as Luke always said, there was always room to learn and improve.

By the time the food was all devoured, it was about time for everyone to return to their huts. Finn stayed behind to talk with Luke as the rest filed out. Rey's staff was slung across her back, and she watched Jannah walk away toward their hut as she stepped off toward the slope to the shipyard with Ben. They walked a little ways down for some semblance of privacy, hands linked between them.

"You don't have to worry about me," Rey said, not even needing the Force to tell her what he was feeling. It was written all over his face.

He shook his head. "Can't help it. I know you can protect yourself but I can't just pretend that seeing you hurt or in danger doesn't affect me."

"I know." She slid her arms around his torso and tilted her head back to look into his deep, soulful eyes. "I can say the same about you."

Instead of making this linger, Ben just sighed and pulled her close, tucking her under his chin and letting the solid feeling of her right here and now assure him that she was indeed fine. They stood that way for longer than they probably should have, until all the noise from the other students settled down.

Finally stepping back, reluctance written all over her face, Rey took her time kissing him goodnight before she tore herself away from him and walked toward her shared sleeping hut. Ben stayed there for a few extra minutes before he turned and walked the long way back down to the Falcon. The boarding ramp closed behind him for the evening and he spent some time going through the systems checks before the holodeck in the cockpit beeped.

With a frown creasing his brow, Ben made his way through the ship and sat leaned between both of the pilots' seats to activate the call receptor. An image flickered with static before stabilizing. The person he saw there was not one he'd ever expected to see again, but he should have known:

Sacha Wren, daughter of Tristan Wren, the current leader of the Wren Clan.

There was a lot of birds involved.

She was a fierce and loyal warrior, a handful of years older than he was and the only reason he recognized her with her helmet firmly in place was because of the hand painted artwork on the side. Ever since the reacceptance of Sabine Wren long before Ben was born, the Wren Clan had embraced her creativity and artistry. Also, Sacha was about the only Mandalorian Ben knew except for Sabine herself.

"Ben?" Sacha's voice came through choppy and barely audible. "Can you hear me?"

"Not really. Take off the helmet, Sacha. It's not like your clan ever held to that ancient Creed."

She huffed but pulled off the Mandalorian helmet, revealing soft olive skin, dark eyes and short dark hair. She had her father's heavyset face that emphasized her strength. "Better?" Her tiny holo-face smirked.

"Yep," he replied, tilting his head to the side. "I'd say it's good to hear from you, but from what I've been hearing, this isn't a social call."

Sacha shook her head, short bangs falling into her eyes. "Unfortunately no. And by the gods, where are you? The signal is weak."

"A long way from Mandalore. Are you on Krownest?" It was the Wren's homeworld, an icy planet where only the hardiest could survive.

"I can't reveal my location and I urge you to do the same."

He wasn't planning on it, but he agreed with a nod. "What's this about?"

"What have you heard?"

"Neimodians coming back into the playing field, getting their hands dirty, as usual."

"Yes. Taking slaves, paying bounties for groups of beings as if they were cattle." Her face screwed up in frustration and anger. The Wren's, like most Mandalorians, were all about honor and loyalty. "And they've been dealing spice and deathsticks."

"Who isn't? It's a big galaxy." He was downplaying all of this, hoping this was just one big misunderstanding. It was childish, but he was enjoying himself too much here on Yavin 4 to think about it being spoiled by another war.

"They've also been desecrating our beskar sites and selling weakened blocks on the black market. Not only disrespecting the Mandalorians, but selling inferior beskar into the hands of anyone with the credits." She paused to pinch the bridge of her nose with black gloved fingers. "My father is beside himself. He's about to strap on a jetpack and suicide bomb the Neimodian homeworld."

Ben frowned. Like his own parents, Tristan Wren had fought his own battles throughout the war with the Empire and had lost a lot during that time. He couldn't imagine living through such a momentous war and then having to watch as future generations made the same mistakes leading to even more conflict. It must have been incredibly frustrating. Maybe that's why Han had decided to leave the New Republic in any official capacity. It was just too much.

"Let's not get hasty," Ben told Sacha. "I can speak with my mom, find out what she knows and if the Republic has any ideas on how to help resolve this. The last thing we all want is another war with the Mandalorians involved to break out. Your people have been through enough in such a short period of time."

Sacha nodded slowly, leaning closer to her side of the projection. "I was hoping you would say something like that. After the last time we spoke I wasn't sure you would want to speak to me again."

Ben avoided looking directly at her little blue form and rubbed the back of his neck. "A lot of things were said that can't be taken back. But this is bigger than both of us." He frowned and met her hologram eyes. "And, for what it's worth, I'm sorry for what I did and said. I was younger and a bit more reckless than I should have been."

"Knowing the stories of your father, I should have expected it. I'm sorry as well." She bowed her head momentarily before snapping back to attention. "You can reach me at this channel, though it's not totally secure. I may not be able to reply immediately."

"I'll let you know what my mother has to say about all this." Her hologram wobbled as the signal got weaker. "Talk soon."

She grunted a goodbye and clicked off. The silence of the _Falcon_ wrapped around him like a blanket and he shuffled back to his bunk. He got himself ready for bed, brought back to ten years earlier when he'd made the stupid smuggler decision to try to dupe the Mandalorians out of a supply of weapons. But there hadn't been weapons in the crates, and he'd just made a fool of himself.

Shaking his head at his reflection in the mirror, he made his way to the main bunk and got himself comfortable. As always, he slept close to the wall, as if Rey was there, taking up space. Well, he always started that way but woke up spread all around like a starfish. He did it every night anyway, even though she had only slept there that one time.

With a sigh, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

* * *

Rey woke with a gasp, heart fluttering fast under her collarbone, a sheen of sweat over her. Her entire body tingled with pleasure and she closed her eyes quickly, trying to hold onto the dream she has been prematurely woken from. Ben's hands on her bare flesh, his lips in places they had never actually been before...her body flushed under her thin blanket and she got quietly to her feet, trying not to wake up Jannah.

It felt strange to be thinking those things in a shared space with someone else and she quietly slipped into the dark morning, coal grey vest pulled over her forest green tunic to ward off the morning chill. Her skin was fiery and the cool air felt nice. Walking quietly through the grounds of the temple, she got to the forest and made her way to the river. No one else was awake yet that she could see or sense so she stripped out of all of her clothes and dove into the water.

It was freezing and it did a good job of distracting her from her dream and cooling her skin. She washed off the sweat and dirt from the previous day's battle with the leviathan worm and then quickly redressed after using a bit of the Force for selfish use to swipe the water droplets from her skin.

Needing to right her mind into its normal schedule of Force and Jedi training for the first half of the day, she sat on a nearby bit of hardpacked dirt covered in small green weeds and grass and placed her hands on her knees. She closed her eyes and breathed in and out, getting herself into a meditation stance, clearing her mind and focusing.

She eventually reached out just a bit with the Force, enough to feel the plants slowly waking to the sunlight creeping across the sky, to the nocturnal creatures returning to their dens or roosts, and the fish in the river waking from their sleep on the rocky bottom.

Rey must have gone into a deep enough trance to start healing, because by the time Jannah found her, the scrape on her cheek was completely gone. The other young woman spotted Rey floating a foot or so off the ground and made her way over, calling her name. When Rey didn't respond, Jannah touched Rey's shoulder and shook it to jolt her back to reality.

With a _thud_ and a groan, Rey hit the ground and cursed under her breath. She opened her eyes slowly, sensitive against the sunlight.

"Couldn't sleep?" Jannah asked as Rey stood up.

Rey nodded.

Jannah shivered. "I kept having nightmares of all those teeth."

"Mine weren't quite...nightmares," Rey said honestly. She tried to push the creeping thoughts away however, because this wasn't Ben Solo time, this was Force time. She'd made a commitment being here and was going to stick with it and not be distracted by anything else.

Jannah shrugged and slung an arm across Rey's shoulders. "Master Luke is looking for you." Jannah never referred to Luke as her father unless they were in their shared hut. Being the daughter of the one and only Jedi Master was kind of intimidating and she'd told Rey all about it as they got to know each other.

Unlike most everyone else here, Jannah had grown up at this temple. From a young age, she lived here with Lando and Luke and, as Lando began to reinsert himself into the world, she would spend a year or two with him and then return to the temple. She had always been able to sense the Force, but she wasn't nearly as strong as her father, or as Rey, though she never showed any bad will toward either of them. "I am who I am," she'd say to Rey as she struggled to do some of the more extreme things that Rey found so easy. She did excell at combat and connecting to nearly-sentient creatures.

"Where's everyone else?" Rey asked as they walked into the temple, now with arms linked. Jannah's hair was pulled back in a thick band, creating a large black halo around her face. The sun in the conservatory hit it and made it shine.

There were no other students in the building and Luke wasn't there yet.

"I think it's just you and Luke today," Jannah said. And the way she said it made Rey realize what that meant.

Every Jedi went through a trial, where they had to face their worst fears; sometimes more than once. Some people had it harder than others and recoiled from the Force or found temptation toward the Darker side of the Force, but Luke said everything was natural and he hoped to never push anyone toward a dark path by properly preparing them.

He was firmly under the belief that the true balance in the Force was being able to take that little bit of Darkness inside each and every person and outweigh it with a strong constitution and your connection to the Light. No one person was all Dark or all Light. It was impossible. Being able to control and manage your internal balance was key.

And that's how he tested his students.

Rey was instantly nervous, palms itching. She had known this was coming, but it still meant facing the one thing she didn't want to face.

Jannah squeezed her hand in reassurance as Rey had fallen silent. Rey stood alone in the room where just hours before it had been filled with the entire school, coming together after fighting off the leviathan worm. It was warm thanks to the sun reaching into the sky above.

Luke arrived minutes later.

"Time for a bit of one-on-one combat training?" Rey said weakly, turning to face the Jedi Master.

He gave her a sympathetic smile. "Perhaps later." He motioned for her to sit. She did and they stayed facing each other.

"I know why I'm here," Rey said finally, since he wasn't saying anything.

Luke inclined his head. "I'm here to help you and guide you."

She nodded, remembering the fear and panic from her dream. She swallowed hard, hands shaking as they lay on her knees. She took a few deep breaths. "On my way here, I had a dream. I had just recently started to open myself to the Force and I'm not sure what happened."

"It's possible that you shook loose something that you had suppressed, something that the Force deemed necessary for you to remember as an adult."

"It was horrible," she said, voice small.

Luke wasn't going to judge her, but it still plucked at her fear to speak. What if what she said made him recoil from her? Would she recoil from herself if it was confirmed that she had killed her own parents?

Forming her hands into fists, she struggled to continue. "I was a child. I remembered my parents. How they actually were, not how I had built them up in my mind. I thought they had loved me and they left me on Jakku for a good reason. But I was wrong." Tears slid down her cheeks but she let them.

"Show me," Luke said, voice soft and calm.

Rey nodded. She needed someone to tell her what she had seen. Taking a few more deep breaths, she steadied her breathing and her hands ceased quavering. Once she had reached a relaxed enough state, she opened her mind. She was slightly scared to have someone see not just her memories but to have such easy access to her emotions, but she trusted Luke Skywalker.

"Relax, Rey," Luke said. "There's nothing to fear from the past. It cannot be changed, just witnessed and confronted. Then you can be free to move forward."

"Okay," she said, more to herself than Luke. She focused on the first memories that floated up, the ones about her parents. Their yelling and screaming, throwing things, hitting and spitting at each other and occasionally her. The flashes of pain when she was tossed around and cut her face, or slapped across the face by her mother with bloodshot eyes. The cursed heat and sun of Jakku when she was wrenched out of the small crate where she had spent a whole day without water or food. The grip on her arm and her uncontrollable confusion as her parents got back into their ship and left. The way she'd yelled for them with her arm outstretched, yelling herself hoarse. The struggle of the ship, pulled by an invisible force. And finally, the _snap_ and the explosion, seconds later.

Reliving the dream, the memories a second time wasn't any easier. She instantly cut herself off from the connection of the Force and buried her face in her hands as she struggled to control herself. Luke shuffled around and lifted her gently by the elbow. She felt frail, raw and exposed and let him guide her to a nearby bench, delicately carved from a fallen tree a decade earlier.

"Did I do that?" she asked once she could speak. Her face stayed soaked with her tears. Luke's hand lay gently on her shoulder. "Did I blow up their ship in my anger? I was just a child." She breathed shakily as a sob threatened. She coughed instead and dabbed at her cheeks with her armwraps.

"You were," Luke agreed. He contemplated for a while, which was fine for Rey, whose body was flush, too hot for comfort. She kept trying to breath evenly. "Do you know why the Jedi would travel throughout the galaxy for children to bring back to the Order?"

Beyond the reasons he had already discussed in classes, she didn't. And she assumed he meant something beyond that and stayed silent.

"Younglings filled with the power of the Force are dangerous. They're learning to be beings and that comes with a tumult of emotions for any species I think. They can use the Force without realizing it, and if their lives are bad, they can begin to use it to do bad things without realizing that they're going down a dark path."

She didn't know what this had to do with her. She hadn't ever remembered using the Force before she met Ben. She hadn't gone toward the Dark.

"And sometimes a child is just a child. I didn't realize I could use the Force, or even _know_ what it was until I was your age. Sometimes that connection doesn't reveal itself until much later on."

"Are you...are you saying I wasn't using the Force? In my memories?" She furrowed her brows.

"I think you were, to an extent. You may have been able to pull back their ship for a second or two, but not for much longer than that without passing out. And I think you reached out to your parents through the Force without knowing what it meant to feel their life forces. And that's why...the ship exploding affects you so much."

Rey blinked rapidly.

"Their ship was old and probably wouldn't have made it off the planet even if you hadn't yanked on it in your distress."

She twisted on the bench. "What are you saying, Master?"

"I'm saying that from what I saw and felt, you did not cause the explosion. You did desperately want your parents to come back for you, as any child would, and you connected with their consciousnesses at the time of their passing. But you had no hand in their demise, Rey."

The weight like a boulder on her shoulder released. She started crying again, but this time in relief. She leaned forward, head in hands, releasing all of the worry and self-hatred she'd been hanging onto for weeks. She was not happy nor sad for her parents deaths, but the fact that their end was not because of her was a reprieve from the dark thoughts she'd been fighting ever since the memories surfaced.

"I didn't kill them," she whispered finally once the crying stopped. She rubbed her face and Luke patted her softly on the back.

"No," Luke assured her. "However they did treat you poorly and abandon you on that planet. That is...something that left a scar of its own."

"I know," Rey said. And she meant it. She could feel it. She felt it when she had first awoke from the memory and thought that she may die if she was abandoned by yet another person. But Ben had stayed by her side like he'd promised. And she had spoken to Leia a few times since being on Yavin 4 and the woman continued to be interested in her.

She had people around her who _wanted_ her and cared about her. But it was not a magic cure. "I'm trying to reconnect with people."

"As I often tell you, connection is everything. It can make you stronger. And I don't mean in the Force. I mean inside your heart, your soul."

Rey nodded, understanding. She leaned forward, gripping the edge of the bench and staring at the ground. She still had a lot to figure out, but during her time here, she had already started to feel as if she was learning about herself and who she wanted to be. She did not want to be a person who killed her parents, and now that she knew she wasn't, she was one step closer to finding out who she was, deep inside.

"I'm proud of you," Luke said after a few minutes. "Every Jedi faces a number of challenges and tests throughout their lives, and yours was not easy. The fact that you have been able to keep a light and caring heart after the hardship of your life is testament to your character."

"Thank you, Master," Rey said, happy to be praised for being herself rather than her strength in the Force.

He smiled and stood. "There is one more thing I'd like to talk to you about." He pushed back his cloak and revealed his lightsaber at his hip. He pulled it off the clip and held it in his exposed metal hand.

Rey tilted her head up, eyeing the weapon. "Your lightsaber?"

" _Your_ lightsaber," he corrected.

Rey's eyes widened and she jumped to her feet. "My lightsaber? What does that mean?"

"It means that I think you're ready to create one of your own."

The grin that split across her face slowly bled into her eyes as her excitement grew to overpower the emotional turmoil and release she had just experienced. "I've wanted a lightsaber ever since I met you, Master."

"I know. Everyone does." He chuckled and let go of the saber. It hung in the air. "Building a lightsaber is not actually all that difficult once you see all the parts involved." With concentration, the hilt slowly began to come to pieces in the air, hovering there like a blueprint.

For someone like Rey, who had spent her life learning how to take apart and put back together ships and machinery, it was easy for her to follow how the pieces fit together so perfectly. And there, in the center of it all was the blue tinted, powerful crystal that could, and did, make the most powerful weapons in the world.

"Wow," Rey breathed out, taking everything in greedily.

"Now, there are a number of different types of lightsabers. Shapes and sizes. I notice that you have your staff from Jakku and you're quite good with it during combat lessons." Luke's concentration on the lightsaber pieces didn't waver and they hovered in the air as he spoke. "There are a number of longer sabers. Two bladed staffs, long pikes with a shorter blade, or dual-sabers that can be two or one depending on necessity."

Rey forced herself to pay attention to what he was saying. She thought of the short, wooden swords they used in combat training in place of lightsabers and how she could wield them, but she did always feel more comfortable with a longer weapon. "Would you need two crystals for two blades?"

"Not if it stays as a staff at all times. Dual bladed, yes. However, a saberstaff is difficult to use. I never learned to use one, and while there are books on it, I'm not sure I could teach you properly. There are a number of disadvantages, like slower reaction times."

She trusted in the Force and the way it was guiding her mind. She wanted to be able to be fast, quicker and more powerful than any enemy. She didn't want to be bogged down by something too large. Plus, she could always use her staff as just that: a staff. "I think a single lightsaber like yours would do, Master."

"Excellent choice. You can make a saber hilt out of anything sturdy. I'd suggest your staff."

Rey's eyes snapped up to Luke's. "My staff?"

"Yes." With a wave of his flesh-and-blood hand, her staff came floating into the room from outside in the hall. He must have brought it with him. She took it carefully from the air and felt instantly at ease with the weight in her hands. She was worried about losing part of it, that balance, but she could always add onto it once they were done. "It has durability and I think it will be a good place to start."

The lightsaber parts settled down to the dirt floor and the two Force users joined them on the floor. Rey held the staff in her lap.

"You'll need a short amount of metal," Luke instructed, as she measured the staff against his lightsaber. "We'll start on the construction here before you leave."

"Leave?" Rey looked up at him.

"Yes. I've had a feeling you and Ben may venture into the galaxy again soon. And you will need to travel far from here to find the crystal you need to power your lightsaber. Some students I join, but I think you will have a better chance finding your crystal elsewhere."

"It's another test," she simplified.

He nodded. "Nothing gets passed you."

She laughed a little and returned her attention to her staff. "How do I turn this into a lightsaber hilt? And how do I keep it as a staff. I want both weapons."

Luke wasn't put off by her desire to be well-protected. He nodded toward one end of the staff. "Let's start there."

* * *

Ben had spent the morning going through the Falcon's motherboard and tidying things up. Han loved his ship, but he let it get way out of hand before he fixed much with it, especially with the hauler to do most of the traveling. Hour slipped by and it wasn't until the nagging voice of Sacha in the back of his head annoyed him too much that he realized how much time had passed.

Knowing the situation was dire after being contacted, Ben contemplated calling his mother directly. Their family channel was encrypted and private, but that didn't mean it was fallproof. Speaking to her in person about the unease on Mandalore would be best.

But he couldn't do that without Rey. He wasn't going to just take off and leave her on this planet, no matter that she liked it here. She continued to gravitate toward his family: his mother, his uncle, his cousin...it was like the universe was not-so-subtly pushing them together. He knew about her fear of being abandoned, literally felt her fear and panic at being away from Jakku just weeks before, and he wasn't going to be the next person to put her through that.

No, he would bide his time and wait to see her, talk to her, figure out when she'd want to leave. Because, like she said, she could always come back. Jedi training wasn't a one-and-done deal. It would take many lifetimes to fully learn everything a Force user might want from their power.

Knowing that Rey separated her day between her Jedi training and him, he couldn't keep still and ended up wandering. He weaved through the numerous different ships in the shipyard, spotting Icur's family's transporter was back in one piece. Now hopefully it could bring the young Twi'lek to Coruscant whenever he wanted to go. The storage building was kept neat and tidy by the students but he poked his head inside anyway just in case anything was amiss. Eventually though, he couldn't help but walk up the slope to the plateau.

He didn't see a single student or his uncle. It was quiet and peaceful, despite the fact that he knew there was a gigantic worm currently eating its way through trees and hills in this quadrant of the moon. Drawn forward, his boots crunched forward over fresh and fallen leaves and twigs as he made his way west toward the river.

As he got close, he found that that was where all the students were. He could hear their voices and the sounds of combat training. He knew the sound from his own memories. He pushed through some thick ferns and came to the sandy dunes forming the beach around this curve of the river.

The six students equipped with lightsabers were going through a complex battle scenario way off in the distance, the blades whizzing and crackling through the air, blue and green. Closer to the river, the other students were paired off with wooden staffs or swords to learn those proper techniques that the Jedi of long past used.

The Jedi Master held one of those swords in hand, working with the Gotal, whose attacks were sloppy. The shoulder that had gotten blasted the previous day must have been his dominant hand. Ben spotted Rey as well, wooden staff in hand, going against another human student named Tai.

It didn't take long for Ben to wonder why Rey wasn't using her own staff, since he knew she had one and she was quite good with it. Maybe the metal staff was too harsh to use in this training, what did he know?

Tai swiped at her with a shorter sword and she blocked it, jumping back a few feet and twirling the staff in her hands to block another blow. They continued to spar, and Ben's admiration of Rey built with each move. She had always appeared light on her feet and graceful enough for someone who had grown up having to fight off bandits, but this was something else.

She moved with an ease and beauty that Ben had never seen before in really anyone. Perhaps it was because he had eyes only for her, or maybe she really was just supremely graceful.

Finally, the fight concluded with Rey got the upper hand, leaving Tai in the dirt under the end of her staff. The taut muscles in her frame relaxed almost instantly and she offered Tai her hand to get him to his feet.

"I don't know how I've been here longer than you and yet you still beat me every time," Tai said, dusting off his trousers. His words were good natured, not accusatory.

"I think it's because I'd already been fighting by the time I got here. I have more practice," Rey said humbly with a shrug.

He laughed a little in response. "It's fine. I don't really want to be a fighter anyway."

"As long as you can protect yourself, you'll make a fine Jedi," Rey told him before she noticed Ben. She had been so focused on her fight, distracted by the thoughts of the morning swirling around in her head, that she hadn't instantly noticed his presence when he arrived.

She turned on her heel and spotted him by the treeline. They walked toward each other and she leaned against the simple wooden staff once they were close. "What are you doing here?" she asked, curious.

"My feet took me here," Ben confessed. He reached up and brushed a speck of dust off her cheek. "I wanted to talk to you. Sorry I interrupted your Jedi stuff."

She shook her head. "It's okay. I want to talk to you, too." She motioned for him to follow her to the river. They sat on cool, smoothed rocks by the edge and she used the Force to fill curved leaves with water for them to drink.

"You go first," Ben insisted.

"I started making my lightsaber," Rey replied, hardly able to contain her excitement.

Ben's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Already?"

She playfully narrowed her eyes at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He held up his hands, palm out, trying not to laugh. "Nothing, I didn't mean it like that."

She kept her serious gaze upon him for a few extra seconds before her eyes softened and she smiled. "I have to go elsewhere to find my crystal," she said, reaching behind her on the other side of the rocks and lifting what used to be the top of her staff. He recognized the shapes of the metal. It wasn't any longer than a normal lightsaber. "And I'll have what's left of my staff as an extra weapon. What do you think?"

Even without the blade to ignite, Ben thought it was pretty impressive. "I think you could definitely kick my ass," Ben mused.

Rey rolled her eyes. "There's no question about that." She grinned and held the newly made hilt in her hands. "Luke says that my crystal is somewhere out in the galaxy. The original Crystal Caves was mostly destroyed thanks to the Empire, but they can be found elsewhere. He seems to think I need to find it on my own."

"As another Jedi test?"

"I think so." Rey leaned her shoulder against his arm and looked out over to the rest of the students, still sparring. Half of them were training with their sabers, and the others were using the wooden stand ins. Luke told her that he had a cash of crystal in the ruins of the Jedi temple on Yavin 4, but he felt that her journey would take her elsewhere. She didn't know why, but she wasn't upset that she had to travel farther to reach her end goal. As much as she wanted a working lightsaber _right now_ she could wait. "What did you want to talk about?"

Ben set aside his leaf-cup and rubbed his hands on his thighs. "I got a transmission from a friend of mine last night. A Mandalorian."

"As in the people you said were having trouble with the Neimodians?" He had told her everything about Lando's visit when they'd come back together that day. He didn't like keeping things from and found it easier to just tell her everything. She liked knowing things and she liked knowing what was going on in the world. Rey wasn't sure how much humanitarianism she would do under the title of Jedi, but perhaps after she had a few years to find herself, she would want to join Luke's cause. But right now, she liked absorbing as much knowledge as she could. Her world had been so terribly small for so long that she was extremely interested in the expanse of the galaxy.

"Yeah. She asked me to talk with my mother about the situation. I told her I would."

Rey nodded. It made sense, since Leia was part of the New Republic's Senate. "Okay. That's good right?"

"I hope so. My mom has connections to the Mandalorians in the past so I think she'll want to help."

"I feel as if there's an exception coming in…"

"I can't talk about what's going on over a transmission channel. It's too likely to get hacked. I need to visit my mother in person."

Rey frowned a little, weighing the situation. "Okay," she said after just a few moments.

Ben twisted to face her easier. "What?"

"Okay," she repeated. "I'll come with you."

"You will?"

"Yes. Luke helped me face my past. I need to search for a crystal and I won't find it here. I'll come with you."

Ben had expected resistance, or a negotiation. Not because Rey was one to protest or argue like that but because he assumed she was still fully invested in the training she was getting here. His worry about either having to leave her _or_ potentially jeopardizing Sacha's secure location by contacting his mother about the Mandalorians was gone in an instant.

"Great," he said, a bit louder than expected.

Rey smiled and leaned up to kiss him before she remembered her own personal decision to have time during the day in which she wasn't around him. But he had broken the rule, so it wasn't _really_ her fault. She did, however, get to her feet then, set down her new hilt on the flat stone and grabbed her wooden staff.

"I should get back to it. When did you want to leave? Soon?"

"Tonight. Or in the morning," Ben said, getting to his feet as well. He walked with her over toward the students, who were all taking a small break. Luke didn't immediately shoo him away. Instead, the Jedi Master clasped his nephew on the shoulder.

"It's been a while since I've seen you on the sparring grounds, Ben." Luke turned to Rey who was surprised. "Ben spent some time one year here with me. Taught him a bit of combat. Maybe he can help you train until you finish your saber."

Rey turned to Ben and placed a hand on her hip. "You never told me about that."

Ben shrugged. "Didn't really think of it."

Jannah leaned close to Rey, having returned from her lightsaber sparring. "He's not very good."

"I'm not very good _compared to Force users_ ," Ben protested.

"I think I need to see this," Rey said.

Ben shook his head. "You don't. I'm so much better with a blaster."

Rey gave him a look that told him she wasn't backing down. With a sigh, he ended up grabbing one of the swords and squaring off against his girlfriend in front of a group of Jedi students.

"This is gonna be embarrassing," he muttered to himself as he body struggled to remember the forms used with a melee weapon.

The smack of wood against wood filled the air. He was sloppy and too loose or too tight in certain aspects, and Rey was doing little but blocking him as he shook off the rust of many years handling just a blaster and his own two fists. He was good at bar fights, but the finesse needed for sparring was a whole other thing.

Eventually though, just as he was getting into a rhythm, Rey stopped holding back and she touched him gently with the end of the staff a few times as she forced him back across the sand. She got the better of him, knocking him to his knees and pointing the staff in a killing blow location near his throat. The students all clapped and cheered for Rey as if this had been some grand show.

Rey tried resisting a smile, but it struggled to appear on her face. Her cheeks her flushed with effort, her hair flying all around her face in wild baby curls and her eyes were _alive_. Ben let his sword fall to the sand and felt the blood pumping through his veins, his breathing quick, and sweat sparkling on his face and making his shirt stick to his torso. If they weren't being observed by a group of beings, Ben would have grabbed her and kissed her breathless right then and there. Instead, he controlled himself, forced himself to break eye contact with her and got to his feet, dusting sand off his dark trousers.

He swooped down to pluck up the sword and shook his head in defeat. "I told you," he said to Rey. He'd been right earlier, she could definitely kick his ass.

Luke called the students back to order and someone took the sword from Ben's hand. He headed toward the cool shade of the trees and Rey trailed behind, though she didn't follow him into the underbrush.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" she asked.

"Maybe bruised my ego a bit," he chuckled. "But I didn't mind it."

"Okay." Rey leaned against her staff, one end stuck in the sand. "How about we leave tonight? I have some things I need to finish up here and people to say goodbye to. It might be late by the time I'm ready."

"That's all right," he replied. "I'm gonna go make sure the Falcon's in working order and let my parents know we'll be coming to see them."

"Sounds good." Rey had to keep herself from following him, knowing she needed to have a proper end to her training. She had to speak more with Luke, say goodbye to the others, gather her things and prepare to travel the stars once again. It was exciting, but there was an order and that didn't include following Ben and kissing him senseless before sneaking off the jungle moon. She had to be mature about this. "I'll see you later."

"You know where to find me," Ben said, testing her self control as he leaned down and kissed her, his broad hand slipping around one side of her ribcage, warm like fire even though her tunic and her own fiery skin. He broke off the kiss far too soon and disappeared into the ferns, leaving Rey to push down her own personal desires and focus on what was right.

Taking a few deep breaths, she twisted around on her heel and rejoined the others.

* * *

Saying goodbye to Jannah was the hardest. Rey had never had a real friend before, and she found herself shedding tears at the thought of being away from Jannah. The other woman appeared just as sad, though she contained her tears and hugged Rey tightly.

"It's not like you'll never be back," Jannah assured her, squeezing her shoulders. It was late, much later than anyone was supposed to be awake. The rest of the encampment was silent except for the natural wildlife.

"I will be back," Rey nodded. "Take care of yourself while I'm gone."

Jannah nodded, hugged Rey again and then they parted. The planet was dark, but it wasn't scary as Rey made her way down to the shipyard. The _Falcon_ 's boarding ramp was still down, despite the late hour. Her heart leaped at the thought of going to space again. She wondered if she would see new planets right away or if that would come later. And she instantly wanted to squirm in her boots at the thought of being alone with Ben again. Completely alone, with no interruptions nor rules and schedules to keep them apart.

Rey's steps were light and fast as she wove through the parked ships and finally stepped foot on the _Falcon_. "Hello?" she called out as she walked through the corridor toward the lounge. "Ben?"

"Rey!" Ben appeared suddenly from the doorway to his bunk, quickly tugging a fresh shirt over his head.

She smiled softly and went to him instantly, wrapping her arms around and burying her face in his chest. He hugged her as best he could with the bag and staff slung over her shoulder, pressing a kiss to the top of her hair and squeezing her shoulders gently.

"I didn't know that saying goodbye would be so difficult," Rey mumbled into his shirt. It was true. She'd never had any genuine connections to anyone before, and she hadn't realized just how _real_ it would feel to leave people. A tiny part of her felt as if she were abandoning them—Luke, Jannah, Icur and the other students—but she knew it was irrational and she had spent the walk over here reasoning with herself about it.

"It is. But we can come back whenever you'd like."

Rey squeezed with all her might for just a moment before letting him go and stepping back. She tilted her head up and was rewarded with his hands cupping her face and a kiss, long and lingering with no worry about being caught or interrupted.

"I'll go get the engines started," Ben said finally, leaving her standing there, eyes still closed, feeling soft and warm inside. Once he had gone, she blinked and made her way through the ship. She put her bag down on the couch and took out her lightsaber hilt. She'd need to make a mechanism to attach it to her belt. Her staff, somewhat shorter, would stay across her back. She was already thinking about what she could add to it to balance the weight again.

The _Falcon_ came to life with a buzz. The rest of the interior lights came on and lit up the space. Rey made her way to the cockpit as Ben was running final diagnostics and checks. She slipped into the copilot's seat and quickly caught up.

"Where are we going? Back to Hosnian Prime?" she asked as the engines warmed up.

"Nope. Dad took Mom to Chandrila. We have a place there."

"Your home planet," Rey said softly. She watched him carefully from her spot. He had a magnificent profile and she always liked memorizing his face from any angle. As much as Luke talked about how the Force worked to weave the fabric of life together, how it could push people together or apart naturally, like destiny, she liked to think she would have found Ben Solo—or he found her technically—even if the Force didn't exist.

"The very same," Ben said, giving her a quick smile before going back to the controls. "I've already got the hyperspace route inputted. We just have to get into orbit."

"Okay." Leaning forward, Rey did her part as copilot to get the _Falcon_ off the ground. They then blasted toward space, the ship running better than it had in a decade. Within twenty minutes they were in open space and Ben set up the hyperdrive. The black around them turned into black and white lines outside the viewport and they shot into hyperspace.

Once making sure the ship was steady and in autopilot set to follow the appropriate travel lane, they could retire. Stepping away from the controls was easy and Ben slipped his arm around her shoulders and Rey put her arm around his back and they stepped through the _Falcon_ like it was their home.

Because it kind of was.

After nearly a month on Yavin 4, Rey had gotten accustomed to the way time moved. It was later now than she had stayed up while training, and she was exhausted. It probably had something to do with the massive emotional upheaval she'd had with Luke. She still couldn't quite grasp the idea that she hadn't killed her parents. It just felt so real, but she trusted that Luke wouldn't have lied to her.

"Does it take longer to get to Chandrila than Hosnian Prime?" she asked.

"About the same, give or take an hour or two."

"Good." Rey nodded. "I'm so tired."

He laughed a little and guided her through the corridor toward the captains bunk. "You can stay here with me, if you'd like."

"Yes," Rey replied, turning to face him. She caught his shirt gently in her fists and pulled him down to her. "I would very much like." She kissed him short and sweet and let out a surprised exclamation when he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her clean off the ground. Their laughter mingled together and Rey buried her face in his neck. "Sleep would be nice too," she muttered.

In just a few minutes, they were ready to sleep. They both had soft white sleepwear and Rey nuzzled easily into his arms in the double-wide bunk. Ben ran his fingers through her loose hair and kissed her forehead before wrapping both his arms around her torso and holding her close.

"I have to tell you something," Rey said, playing with the seam of the collar of his shirt.

"Okay."

"I didn't kill my parents," she said it quickly, barely discernible. "Luke walked through my memory, my nightmare about that day and he told me it wasn't my fault." A few fat tears of relief squeezed out of her eyes but she didn't feel like losing control like before. She felt safe.

Ben rubbed her back in soothing circles. "See? I told you," he said softly. "Now you don't have to carry that weight with you any more."

"You could tell." Statement, not question.

"I may not have the Force, but I'm observant."

She nodded and tilted her head back, searching for his eyes in the dimmed lighting. Her heart fluttered in her chest and she thought she would choke from the strength of the emotion. "I love you, Ben," she said, words small, but clear and with purpose. She'd never uttered those words to anyone, or had much thought about what love was before. But she didn't need someone to tell her what she was feeling.

Ben smiled that bright, precious smile that made her stomach turn in the best possible way. "That's good," he said, nonchalantly, "because I love you, too." He kissed her, and whispered her name and kissed her again. "So much."

She'd felt it, in his actions and his words and his eyes, but it was all another thing to hear the words with her own two ears. She was almost overwhelmed with the feeling. After so long of waiting, so long of being nothing, of being beaten and cheated, she loved and was loved in return. It was almost too much.

They lay there in the growing dark, noses almost touching, until their breathing fell steady and matched and they drifted into a sound sleep.

* * *

Rey woke a couple of hours later. Ben was turned toward the wall, though her hand was tucked between his arm and his side as if they couldn't bear to not be touching even in sleep. She wriggled her hand free and stepped as lightly as she could through the ship. She used the refresher and checked the hyperspace drive. Everything seemed fine and she had slept just a handful of hours, which was her usual amount.

She never slept a lot, though she did dream occasionally of sleeping in, something Jannah said she loved doing when she was visiting Cloud City.

Her legs had gotten a chill as she walked through the ship and she slipped back under the covers next to Ben, who responded to her movement and rolled over onto his stomach, face tilted toward her. The only lights on in the room were the thin band of lights midway around the wall, giving just enough light to see.

His face was softer in sleep, even more peaceful than it was when he was awake and relaxed. She gently pushed hair back from his face and lightly trailed her fingertips down his cheek, his nose, over his lips. He stirred and mumbled something, shoving his face into the pillow moments before his arm snaked out and grabbed her.

She didn't protest and let him pull her half-under him. He was warm and strong and used her chest as a new pillow. She laced her fingers through his hair and ran her other hand down his arm, his back.

Ben slowly found his way to full consciousness, squeezing her torso in his weakened morning grip and shifting his head so his cheek pressed against her breastplate. Her heart thrummed, strong and healthy, and she'd never felt so very alive under his touch.

"What time is it?" he asked, finally speaking.

"Does it matter?" Rey laughed, still working her fingers through his hair.

"Guess not." He shifted himself onto his other arm, now hovering above her. Her hands settled against his neck. They didn't say anything, as nothing could have been said that wasn't already understood and spoken with their eyes. Ben leaned down and kissed her gently, letting go of her torso and gently hooking his fingers under her chin.

The kiss turned into more kisses. Deep, hungry ones with gaping mouths and tongues slipping between lips. They kissed for what very well could have been an hour or two, and with each passing graze of lips on lips and lips on neck, the more their hearts sped and their skin burned.

It was Rey who first struggled out of her tunic, having grown far too warm for it. It landed on the floor, leaving her chest bare. Ben ran a line of kisses down her jaw and neck to her chest and then tossed aside his own shirt. They resumed kissing, the feeling of skin against skin driving Rey half-mad. She loved it and wanted it more than just about anything she'd wanted in her entire life.

Even with her inexperience in any matters such as these, her body seemed to have no problems knowing what to do. Her legs curled around his hips when he settled there, the weight of him oddly satisfying. Jolts of electricity scattered around her body when he kissed her just below the ear or ran his hands over her chest and nipples. She grew exceedingly needy and warmer and warmer, until she felt she may burst. Her fingertips dug into his back and she did her fair share of exploring: kissing the salty slope of his neck, hands roaming every inch of his chest and back, and gently tugging on his hair.

Rey's entire body felt paradoxically relaxed and tensed at the same time. Everything about this felt like nothing she had ever been able to fully encompass in her dreams. It was so much more, so much bigger.

When Ben ran his hands down her sides and kissed down her chest to her legs, she was fairly certain she may burst. He kissed the soft inner thigh of her leg and she saw stars behind her closed eyes and was muttering a whole slew of things that she had no control over. It was nonsense pleas and exclamations and she both desired an end and never wanted it to stop.

She was completely open to him, with no inhibitions. She wanted to keep feeling this amazing, otherworldly way and she wanted Ben to be the cause. She let him strip her off her last bit of clothing and resume kissing her, their bodies naked against each other. He pulled one of her legs over his hip and moved against her just a little, and she let out an uncontrollable curse and he laughed.

She slapped his shoulder. "Don't laugh at me," she said, voice thick and haughty.

"I'm sorry," he said and he meant it. "I'll make it up to you." And he did. He slid his hands down her thigh and between them and Rey had to bite her bottom lip to stop from crying out, fisting her hand in the pillow beneath her as he moved his fingers like magic.

Every part of her was so sensitive that it took just a few minutes for her to feel a coil deep seeded inside of her condense and break in the most astounding wave of pleasure that she begged him to smother her in kisses so she didn't yell. Within moments, she felt him push against her, slick and wet.

"I want you, Ben," she whispered, greedy for more. He didn't need to be told twice. There was more kissing and touching and thrusting and it was visceral and animalistic in a way that Rey found herself loving. Everything in the universe just then was the two of them, _connecting_.

She felt a new wave of pleasure with every moan and whisper in her ear, and every kiss on bruised, overkissed lips. She arched her back and moved her own hips to where it felt good and Ben nearly crumpled on top of her, swearing she would be the death of him. She did nothing but smile and tell him she loved him and he was done for.

He then did collapse on top of her, both of them sweaty and overly warm. She didn't mind it and laughed a little because there was nothing else she could think to do while she just felt so _good_. She'd never felt flooded with such excitement and happiness before. Ben chuckled, sloppily kissed her cheek and nuzzled her neck.

After a while, they parted and showered in the refresher. Ben, legs wobbly, broke open a supply container and got some food prepared for Rey. She ventured into the big cabin and found one of his shirts, pulling it on and then wandering the lounge. He sat in just pants on the couch, head tilted back against the cushions, half asleep when she slid next to him, startling him awake.

Rey grabbed a slice of one of Yavin 4's native fruits and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. "Thank you," she said before digging into the food. He had already eaten a bit and hugged her around the middle and leaned his head against her back as she sat forward to eat. He almost fell asleep again. Rey ate her fill, her body still vibrating with excess pleasure. She wondered how long it would last and reveled in the feeling.

After checking they still had half a day on the hyperspace trip, Rey got Ben back to the bunk before he fell asleep for a third time. He didn't let her go, curling onto his side and pulling her back to his front, keeping her there with his arm.

She didn't protest, snuggling down into the pillows and quickly falling asleep along with him.

* * *

Chandrila was similar to Hosnian Prime, except it had more foliage than cities. It was a beautiful green and blue planet and Rey was bright eyed and fully rested by the time they stepped off the Falcon in the spaceport. They had to go through security like anyone else, and then they were free to go wherever. Hand in hand, they walked a little while before they got a speeder to take them to the Organa Skywalker residence.

"I thought your last name was Solo," Rey asked from where they sat in the back of the taxi speeder.

"It is. I mean I'm also Ben Organa Skywalker in certain crowds."

"Non-smuggler crowds," she prodded.

He tucked her under his arm. "Mostly."

She kept quiet, gazing out at the city as the speeder rose a couple levels and then stopped at the building that housed the Organa Skywalker suite. They had to ride an incredibly fast elevator up to nearly the top of the building. Ben had two bags slung over his shoulder, Rey's lightsaber hilt safely tucked at the bottom of hers. They walked off the elevator hand in hand—Rey hadn't lost her desire to constantly be touching Ben after they'd slept together; in fact it may have gotten even stronger, but Ben didn't seem to mind the displays of affection. She didn't go overboard when they weren't alone, either holding his hand or just walking close enough to have their arms touch.

There was a small foyer and just one set of doors leading to the suite. Before they could even activate the interface next to the door, it was pulled open by Leia. Like the last time, mother and son hugged tightly. Unlike this time, Rey greeted Han Solo, no longer anxious and in awe of him as a legend, but moreso just as the man who raised the love of her life.

The suite wasn't much different than the one on Hosnian Prime, though it had more droids. A short blue and white astromech looked out of place but was friendly, and the humanoid gold protocol droid introduced himself as C-3PO. Rey delighted him by speaking a handful of words in the many languages she knew from living on Jakku.

Their days on Chandrila were also like Hosnian Prime. Ben and his mother spoke in detail about Sacha's message and what was really going on between the Mandalorians and Neimodians. She was vaguely aware of it, but not to such detail. Some of her time was then squirreled away by contacting Senators and also the Mandalorians.

Rey and Han Solo took the _Falcon_ for a joyride with R2D2 along for the trip. Ben was a fantastic pilot, but the ship was Han's at heart. He was pleasantly surprised at how well Rey co-piloted. By the time they returned to the apartment, they had their heads together, talking shop, the names of multiple parts and ship systems flying off their tongues.

Ben and Rey even sparred a little bit. It was less to beat each other than to pass the time. Plus, it was fun to strip down and _battle_ and eventually fall into bed together while Ben's parents were out on some day trip. Rey loved Ben more than her heart could contain and sometimes she felt as if the only way for him to truly know was to show him with actions.

She learned very quickly.

A couple days into their visit, with the Mandalorian conflict on their minds as well as Rey's need for a kyper crystal, the pairs spent a good portion of the morning together. Ben and Han went out to check on the _Falcon_ , and Leia and Rey meditated and tried to figure out where they would need to go in order to get her crystal.

Ben and Han barely spoke on the speeder ride to the port. But once on the ship, they got to talking. Han was impressed with the work Ben had done to the _Falcon_ on Yavin 4.

"You sure did have a lot of free time at Luke's, son," Han said, eventually stopping in the lounge. He stayed standing, moving around the space. Ben realized his dad must have missed the ship and simply sat on the edge of the couch.

"Yeah. Rey did her Jedi business during the day so I had a lot of time on my hands. Fixed up the _Falcon_ , helped fix up some of other other ships while I was there. Explored a little."

"Find a gold-mine?"

"Nope," Ben said. "Unless you count old ruins."

Han waved a dismissive hand. "Rey...she's a pretty good pilot."

"Yeah." Rey had told Ben all about her trip in the ship with Han Solo. A bit of her old excitement about the prospect of meeting the old smuggler had surfaced, which Ben found endearing and adorable. "Told you."

"Yeah, yeah." Han paused, hands on hips, back to his son. He stood there, contemplating, before he turned around. "So you and her...are you two…?"

Han was used to Ben finding a pretty face and staying with her for a few nights, maybe for a whole job. Usually it ended up with him getting swindled—he was as bad at picking bed partners as he was as gambling on holo-chess or dice—or didn't really lead to anything more. But Rey...she was still here and Ben had stayed by her side. Han didn't know quite what to make of it.

Ben sat back, folding his hands together, unable to keep the expression that came over his face, begging for him to slip into a grin. "I stayed on Yavin 4 for her."

"Yeah," Han nodding, walking a bit closer to his son.

"I dunno, there's just something about her."

"Yep."

"From the first time I saw her, before I even knew her name, I kept thinking about her and then," he paused and shrugged, "it worked out."

Han was close to Ben now and his usual gruff expression broke for a moment into something a bit smaller with a small smile. He clapped a hand on Ben's shoulder. "I understand, son. Sometimes...you just know."

"Like you and Mom?" Ben teased. He knew the story of their first meeting. It wasn't exactly a fantasy romance.

Han scowled. "I still knew when I knew. And Rey seems like a nice girl."

"Thanks, Dad," Ben said, because he wasn't sure what else to say. It wasn't as if his father was emotionally distant, but he was a hard edged man and as Ben himself grew into a man, their long conversations about feelings and thoughts became shorter. They didn't happen as often any more, but that didn't make Ben feel any less loved by his father. He was actually kind of touched that Han had even thought to bring up Rey.

Han moved away then and Ben followed, hovering by his father's side as Han pried off a panel in the corridor to check some wiring. "Have you two uh...talked about anything?"

"I haven't asked her to marry me or anything if that's what you're asking," Ben said with a chuckle. "Rey's still working on her Jedi teaching. Plus there's no rush."

"Nah, there isn't," Han agreed. "D'you think she'd be interested in smuggling with you? In the future I mean."

Skirting around the word _retired_ , Ben pondered the question, crossing his arms and leaning against the curved corridor walls. "Probably. She was super interested in _you_ and your infamy when we first met. I think she'd like Chewie if she spent more time with him."

Han grunted. "Where is that furball?"

"Kashyyyk. I think he was missing his kin. Maybe he'll stay there for a while, start a family. He's old enough. Speaking of Wookiees, did you know Chewie gave Jannah a bowcaster?"

Han cursed when his hand slipped on some wire. He brought his finger to his lips. "A bowcaster? One of his?"

"She didn't say. Maybe it was another one but he gave her one. She has a lightsaber _and_ a bowcaster."

"Truly unbelievable, son," Han said, deadpan.

Ben shrugged. "Just saying. Even _you_ like the bowcaster."

"Yep. But nothing beats a light blaster. You need two hands for a bowcaster."

His dad had a point. Han put the panel back on the wall and pounded it in place with his fist. He then trailed through the main hold and scoffed at the lack of cargo. "I like her, if you were worried," Han said.

It took Ben a moment to catch up. "Good. I'm glad. She likes you too. And she's really gotten close to Mom."

"I noticed. She's got a good spirit."

Ben smiled a little and nodded. Feeling like that was the end of that sentimental talk, he followed his father to the cockpit to take the ship for a spin.

Meanwhile, Leia and Rey had spent some time that morning walking through slightly wild gardens near the Organa Skywalker suite. It was a pleasant day out and they walked with their arms linked together. Rey liked these gardens. They were tidy but also not sculpted so they felt real.

"It's lovely here."

"It is. It's not a bad place to call home," Leia said.

Rey looked at the greystone pathway. "Ben told me what happened to Alderaan. I'm so sorry. I can't imagine having to live without...everything you knew."

Leia patted her hand. "I appreciate your concern. I still dream of it sometimes. The mountains, the streams, my home, my parents. They're comforting memories. And I think you understand a little. You left the only planet you've ever known to be home."

"It's not the same. I stayed on Jakku because of fear and doubt and misplaced hope. I never thought of it as home. It was just a place I was waiting. I'm not quite sure where my home is right now."

"I think you've found your home."

Rey looked at her quizzically.

"Home isn't always a planet. Sometimes it can be a person."

Rey's expression smoothed out. "You mean like Ben."

"I think I do."

She thought about it. And perhaps that was true. Maybe Ben was both her home _and_ her family. It was a nice thought. "You should be proud of your son. He's the most wonderful person I've ever met."

"I have to admit that a lot of that is Han's doing. They're two peas in a pod, those two. Always joined at the hip. Oh, I love Ben, and I raised him, but he was always his father's son."

"I love him, too," Rey said quietly, without meaning to. She hadn't realized she had spoken aloud until Leia squeezed her arm.

"I had a feeling. You're an amazing young woman, Rey. It makes all the sense in the world that Ben would fall for you."

"Does it?"

"You're more powerful than him, aren't you?"

"Technically. But I don't like to hold that over him. It feels dark."

Leia shook her head. "Not like that. I mean you're naturally more powerful. You're stronger because of your hardship growing up. You're independent and strong willed and know what you want. All things that are strong. And if Ben's anything like his father, he was drawn to you because of that. And you have a lovely soul under that hard exterior, Rey. It's no wonder everyone you meet takes to you."

Rey blinked back unexpected tears. "Thank you," she said, before she changed the subject by turning a corner in the path and finding a plant with a huge pink flower that was bigger than her entire torso. By the time the two women made it back to the suite, they were both tired from the walk.

"Here, let me do something for you," Leia said, guiding Rey into the large but mostly barren bed chamber that was Leia's. There was a large bed with white sheets and silver blankets, an inlaid closet with the doors closed and a vanity with soft silver metal and a flawlessly flat mirror. Rey always found it weird to look at herself. There was a small mirror in the _Falcon_ refresher, and that was the first time she'd seen herself clearly in her entire life. She'd seen herself reflected in the water pool at the Niima Outpost occasionally but it was dirty and distorted. And at Luke's there was no room for vanity.

Leia let down Rey's hair, which had been pulled back. The older woman pulled a brush from a drawer as well as some pins and ties which she piled on the top of the vanity. She started pulling the brush through Rey's hair.

"On my home planet, there was a whole language that could be spoken by the way you set your hair. Braids could mean any number of things and any other hairstyle could be an emotional statement as well as a fashion."

No one had ever brushed Rey's hair before. Ben ran his fingers through her hair sometimes, yes, but there was something about having a brush ran through her hair that unlocked something small like a child and a little bit broken. She found her bottom lip quivering and a few tears slip down her cheeks.

"Oh," Leia said, coming around the other side of the chair, reaching out with her hands toward Rey's face as well as with the Force. "Are you all right, my dear?"

Rey sniffed, "I'm sorry. It's just...I just realized that this is what it would have been like to have a mother who loved me." More tears fell from her eyes and Leia's face fell not with pity, but with empathy and a bit of anger. She did as any mother would do and hugged the poor girl to her. Rey accepted the embrace, letting go of the unresolved, lingering feelings she had toward her parents, her mother. She hadn't realized she was still holding onto feelings from her childhood. The hope that her mother was wrong and would come back to find her because she missed her and loved her; the fact that the reason her parents hurt her wasn't her fault; it was not her fault that her parents didn't love her.

By the time she had cried herself out, she felt better, if not a little embarrassed. She sat back and wiped her palms on her face. "I think I ruined your dress."

Leia looked down at the small wet patch on her dress and shrugged. "It's just fabric." She gave Rey a warm smile and then returned to stand behind the girl. "Now, do you want me to continue?"

Rey nodded, straightening her shoulders as Leia continued brushing through to the ends of Rey's hair. It was growing longer than she usually let it go. Once it got too long on Jakku, she'd take a knife and hack away at the bottom until it was manageable. It had been a while since she'd done that.

"Why don't you tell me about Ben? I'll braid your hair into something special just for him."

Rey blushed a little. "Won't everyone know?"

"No. Han never caught on, but I taught Ben. He has lovely hair, doesn't he?"

"He does. He braids it too, though only small ones."

"Family names and connections," Leia said, waving her hand. "Now, about Ben. How do you feel about him? What do you want to tell him?"

Without getting too into detail, Rey described her feelings for Ben. About him being her family, about being safe with him, about how she felt as if she would burst from happiness and love whenever she was around him, and how she could always find him through the Force. As she spoke, Leia held her hair in complicated strips between her fingers and slowly began to weave them together.

By the time she was done, Rey's hair looked nothing like it had ever looked before. It was all pulled away from her face, though not in her little buns, but in a complicated looking braid that spread around the back of her head like some sort of starmap. There were smaller braids coiled around the back of her head and slightly thicker ones around the outside. She hadn't even realized she had enough hair to _do_ that.

"Wow," was all she could say as she twisted and turned to look at the hairdo in the mirror. "I wish I knew what it said."

"It says what you told me. I promise," Leia patted her shoulders. "I'm afraid there aren't many left in the galaxy who would know what it says but believe me, Ben will know."

"Should I be worried?" Rey asked, amused. "You didn't have me ask him to marry me, did you?" She peered at the hair again.

Leia laughed. "No. Unless you want me to…"

"No!" Rey said quickly, getting to her feet. "Not right now." She shook her head and then remembered who she was talking to and bowed slightly. "Thank you. I don't know what I did to deserve you sharing your culture with me."

"You feel like you're practically part of the family already, Rey," Leia told her, which made Rey beam. "Now. What do you say to a dress? We'll make it fancy for dinner."

When the Solo boys returned, the suite was mostly dark and C-3PO met them at the door.

"Masters Han Solo and Ben Solo," the protocol droid said happily. "I've been tasked with informing you to both wash and dress yourselves in the clothes laid out for you in your rooms."

"What?" Han walked passed the droid. "Why? Leia!"

"Why? Well, sirs, Mistress Leia and young Rey have made this evening into a fancy dress affair. They insisted. The meal has been especially made as well."

Father and son shared looks. Han looked annoyed, but Ben was highly curious. They went to their separate rooms, seeing hair nor hide of the women in the house.

Their fancy dress was similar: flat black pants and shined boots, crisp white shirts and black vests. Ben wore a jacket that matched but Han refused to put his own. He tugged at the collar and nodded toward C-3PO.

"Okay, we're dressed. Happy?"

"Yes, sir," the golden droid said before walking slowly toward the closed dining room doors. He opened them and revealed the round dinner table done up in floating electric candles, some fancy looking roasted bird in the middle and a number of side dishes.

"I'm starving," Han said, ignoring the whole idea of a fancy dinner and going right for the bird. A moment later, Leia's voice came from behind them:

"Really, Han? You couldn't even wait until we got into the room?"

Both men turned. Leia and Rey both stood in the doorway: Leia looking fully comfortable in her blue silk dress, draped around her shoulders and elbows and glittering with every step, and Rey looked out of sorts but nonetheless beautiful. Her hair was pulled back off of her neck and her dress wasn't even that extreme when it came to fashion. It was a simple design, with thin straps that wrapped around her shoulderblades and fabric that stuck to her skin just enough. The back dipped to her lower back with a shimmery opaque fabric covering her skin and the rest of the dress fell straight down, hovering just above the floor. It was a lovely forest green that brought out the color in Rey's eyes.

"Hi," she said when Ben sort of glitched and stood there frozen for a good sixty seconds as his mother walked into the room and Han pulled out a chair for her.

"Hi," Ben replied automatically, before shaking himself into motion. He walked forward and lightly touched her elbows. "Wow."

"Your mother insisted," Rey whispered, leaning closer. "I don't mind it though. It's pretty fun."

"Fun, right," Ben repeated as they walked to the table.

"Oh, you look nice too," Rey said, remembering her manners. She grinned at him and sat at the table.

"Is there an occasion for this?" Han asked once they had gotten food onto their plates. He tried catching his son's eye over the table but failed. Ben couldn't keep his eyes off Rey.

"Do we need one?" Leia asked. "And if we did, it would be because we have family here and Rey just completed her Jedi training. It's a cause for celebration. And I think we'll accompany Rey and Ben when they leave."

That snapped Ben out of his daze. "You will?"

"Not just for kicks, Ben," Leia insisted. "I'll travel with Rey to Christophsis. We believe there will be crystals there for her lightsaber. I would be more than willing to give Rey my own crystal, but she insisted on going on the journey and she will need another with her."

That made a lot of sense, actually. "Okay," Ben agreed immediately.

"Do I get any say in the matter?" Han asked.

Leia patted his hand. "Not really, but you can fly the _Falcon_."

Han grunted and stabbed some of his bird meat. "Good enough for me."

The dinner went about like usual. The food was more lavish than any of their previous dinners and they were occasionally interrupted by C-3PO, who was more than willing to blurt out history and cultural lessons to whoever would listen.

By the time the meal was done, the table was cleared and Rey had, as per usual, eaten more than anyone would expect from someone her stature. At Leia's insistence, they then took the elevator up to the roof, where a blooming garden sat under the moonlight.

Rey took in the clear air and tilted her head back to look at the stars. She walked forward and held out her arms, closing her eyes and feeling out with the Force at the light and vibrance around her.

"It's so magical," she said, not even feeling the chill over her arms and through the thin fabric across her back.

"What is?" Ben asked, coming up behind her and noticing her hair for the first time. It was in very, very distinct patterns.

"The universe. Everything in it. When I thought every planet was like Jakku, it didn't seem like such a bad thing to just stay in one place. But now…" She twisted around and smiled brightly up at him. "Isn't it fantastic?"

"Yes. It is. And Rey…" He sighed contentedly and pulled her close. "You look stunning. I mean, I love when you're covered in dirt and wearing days old tunics—" She made a face at him and he chuckled, "but this is...beautiful in a different way."

"Thank you," she said, her cheeks flushing. "Your mother wouldn't be refused, like I said. I've never worn anything like this before." She took a small step back and ran her hands over the fabric. It felt like cool, smooth water under her touch.

"And your hair?"

She blushed a little deeper but twisted around and tilted her head toward the moonlight so he could see. "Leia told me about Alderaan's culture and language with hairstyles. She thought it would be nice for you…" She felt a little strange to say it aloud, especially when he was quietly standing behind her, reading her hair like a book. "I don't actually know what it says. She asked me how I felt about you and started braiding."

"It's um...all good things. She didn't sneak anything bad in there," he said, knowing that it would be in his mother's personality to do such a thing.

"Do you like it?" she ventured to ask, feeling the light touch of his fingertips running along a ridge of her hair in a circular pattern.

"Yes," Ben said, voice low and soft. "I feel like I need to make a braid for you in my hair now."

"I won't be keeping it," Rey said, spinning around. "I mean, I love that you like it but it's not like I can do it on myself."

"I don't expect you to," Ben said, reassuringly. He put his hands gently on her shoulders. "Thank you for letting my mom do your hair. It may seem silly but…"

"I understand wanting connection to where you're from," she said and that was all that needed to be spoken. She knew she would never get it, so she was forging her own future, her own connections. Instead, she took his hands and pulled him deeper into the garden, beneath some trees with purple heart-shaped leaves. It took no prompting for him to kiss her, cupping his hand around her delicately exposed neck. She folded her arms against his chest and melted into his chest, feeling absurdly unlike herself but not hating it.

Ben was careful not to touch her hair. They kissed until Rey could hardly catch her breath and then they spent a while just holding hands and wandering around the garden. Ben occasionally snuck in a touch along her spine, which gave her chills and made her both annoyed and a little excited at the same time.

By the time they returned to the suite, it was dark. The door to Leia and Han's room was closed. The past few nights here, Ben had stayed in the small, secondary guest room, but tonight he slipped into the grander guest room with Rey. They stripped down to sleepwear and got under the covers. It was a testament to their self control that they simply kissed a little and laid next to each other. Rey lay on her stomach and Ben propped himself up on her elbow to trace the braids woven into her hair.

He told her which each one said, and used very similar words that Rey had used. It really was like its own language.

"This means you feel safe with me. And that you love me. This is...I'm your family?"

"You are," Rey said, turning her head so she could speak to him. "I thought I made that pretty clear. I don't have any other family and I choose you."

He smiled softly and kissed her bare shoulder where it has slipped from her shirt. "This means um...you can always find me. Oh, through the Force. Like you told me a couple days ago."

"It's still true." He was always a beacon to her. Bright and shining and full of life.

"There's this one here in the middle, with the smallest braids," he said, as if she could see where he was pointing. "Something like you...explode around me."

Rey laughed, smothering the loud sound with the pillow so she didn't accidentally wake the parents in the next room. "So it's not a perfect language. I think I said something about feeling like I burst with happiness when I'm with you."

"Ah. That makes more sense." He leaned down and kissed her shoulder again and her neck and her temple before settling down on the mattress next to her. "What are we gonna do after you get your lightsaber crystal?"

She turned onto her side to face him as he called the lights to be turned off. Only the light from the window shone softly into the room now. "Deal with the Mandalorian and Neimodian business. Right? That's important."

"Yeah. Mom's working on it. And after?"

Rey sighed, putting her hand on his face and gently rubbing her thumb across his cheekbone. "I don't really know. As long as I'm with you, that all I want right now."

"We could go back to smuggling. And by we I mean I can teach you and we can join Chewie and maybe Dad. Though I think he may actually think of retiring soon…"

Rey smothered his talking with a kiss. "There's a lot to think about. Let's think another night. Okay?"

"Okay."

* * *

The _Falcon_ felt less like a bachelor pad and more like a full household once everyone was on board. With Ben, Rey, Han, Leia, R2D2 and C3PO, not to mention the med droid 2-1B that went wherever Leia went, the ship was quite full. It had been cleaned before their trip, non-essentials moved to the hold and the captain's bunk set up for Ben's parents. Ben was resigned to sleeping in Rey's previous sleeping choice, the tiny bunk along the corridor that didn't have space for a second person. She took the other smaller bunk nextdoor, but during their single night on the ship, she did end up sneaking into his bed and falling asleep on top of him.

"Why don't we go to Ilum?" Rey had asked Leia as they set their course. The two women sat in the jumpseats as the Solos worked like a well oiled machine to get the _Falcon_ running.

Leia had sighed and crossed her arms at the wrist. "It's been stripped of most of its crystal. And it's far too important a site for me to go alone. I think if Luke was here with you instead he'd bring you there. But Christophsis should have a crystal for you. I have a feeling."

Rey knew all about feelings and didn't push it.

Once they were in hyperspace, the trip would take over twenty-four hours to get to the Outer Rim planet. During that time, Han and Ben spent time going over the smuggling business and playing dejarik while keeping an eye on the flying. In the nearly empty hold, the women meditated. Leia instructed Rey to reach out and feel, trying to find a location for her crystal.

At first, Rey was hesitant to meditate and reach out while in hyperspace. The last time that happened, she had that horrible memory assault her sleep. But she had learned a lot since then and did as Leia instructed.

That wasn't all they did. They all gathered to talk about the Mandalorian problem, Rey sitting so close to Ben that she was nearly in his lap, craving being close to him at every instance possible. The droids had their say as well, though none more than C-3PO, who found fighting and violence incomprehensible and a waste of energy.

Rey wished the world could be that black and white, but the more she learned, the more she knew that wasn't true.

They came out of hyperspace above a planet covered in green, with lines and shapes of civilization carved out by lighting. It had large cities, but not like Coruscant or even Hosnian Prime. There was still much wilderness there.

"Okay," Leia said, standing and motioning for Rey to follow. "The boys'll get into the cockpit and we'll guide them."

"Guide them?" Rey asked, standing as well. Han and Ben slipped out of the lounge.

"Reach out with the Force. The crystal will call out to you, Rey," Leia put her hands on the younger woman's shoulders. "It's yours, just waiting."

Taking in a deep breath, Rey nodded, squared her shoulders and joined the others in the cockpit. Sitting in the jumpseat, she meditated and reached out, asking the Force for help. It listened sometimes, but not always, when she asked like this.

Today, however, it was cooperative. It led her to some deep caves of old Jedi origin, long forgotten by native Christophisians. They had once been part of a Crystal Forest on the surface, but had since sunk into the earth as a way of protecting itself. Rey guided them close, to a place where the _Falcon_ would have space to land. There wasn't much here, on this part of the planet.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Han asked, peering out of the boarding ramp skeptically. Leia, dressed in trousers, tall boots, long sleeves and a vest, looked ready to romp through the thick forest. She had her lightsaber, rarely used but ever-hers, attached at her hip, her blaster just below it.

Rey was similarly equipped, using one of Ben's spare blasters, saberhilt hanging off her belt, and her staff strapped across her back. "We'll be fine," she said, pausing to grip the front of Ben's shirt and pulling him down for a kiss before she followed Leia outside. The ground was plush and the air was thick; even heavier than Yavin 4.

She had no worry or fear, walking onward with that determination and calm that Ben found to be a common trait of all Jedi. A small part of him would always worry about Rey, and his mother for that matter, but time and time again the women in his life surprised him so he wasn't going to let it eat away at him.

Once they were out of sight, father and son went back into the _Falcon_ , leaving the boarding ramp open. They would come if needed, keeping scans out for any large, unwelcome lifeforms, but they'd stay back. This was Jedi business.

Out on the planet's surface, Rey led Leia, allowing the Force to guide her. "Do you remember making your lightsaber?" Rey asked as they got closer to the secret, sunken forest. She could feel the power and also the way the planet was protecting itself even from those sensitive to the Force. She couldn't blame it; the Empire had done a lot of damage here.

"Yes," Leia said, feeling so much life and Force power on the planet that she felt more spry than she had in years.

When she didn't offer any more information, Rey pushed. "Did you have to face a great test? During your training? Or when you got your crystal?"

Leia paused, running her hand along a long fern leaf. It was soft under her touch. "Are you worried about another test? I thought you wanted to face whatever it was the Force had in store for you?"

"I do. I just want to know what to expect." Jakku didn't lead to too many surprises. Her days were routine, only rarely shaken up and never so much until Ben Solo touched down on the planet's surface. She was still getting used to spontaneity and trying to be accepting of when she was out of control. It never used to bother her before: she'd bare her teeth and yell and scream and fight when necessary, but since she had tapped into the Force, her outbursts could be more...catastrophic. And she didn't like being scared of herself and what she could do. It had only been a little over a month since she'd realized she had such powers, and she knew it would take longer to figure everything out, it wouldn't be overnight. But that didn't stop her from being anxious about another test in which she could lose control. She wasn't worried about finding the crystal, or the test itself, just what it may make her do.

"Nothing good in life comes when it's expected," Leia said, starting walking again. They were close to the caves now, both of them could sense it.

Rey could find no argument in that and trudged along. They got to a decline that looked like it just led into more forest, but both of them could sense something more. Using the Force to slide down the hillside and not break a bone or twist an ankle, the two of them pushed through thick underbrush and plants and squeezed through a tunnel barely wide enough for them to slide down. The tunnel was at an angle and it lasted a good ten seconds before they dropped to hard packed dirt.

Rey made sure that Leia was fine, helping the woman to her feet and steadying her with an arm. It was pitch dark in the cavern. Leia popped her saber off her hip and ignited the blade. It shone blue in the dark.

Slowly, like a large creature waking up, veins in the cavern began to glow blue and green and throb like a heartbeat. It was the cave, responding to the arrival of the crystal in the lightsaber. Rey walked forward, now able to see. The cave was small and bare except for the glowing walls. There was, however, a large smooth rock up ahead. She was drawn to it. Leia followed closely behind, holding aloft her saber as a light.

The rock was set into the cave walls, like it was built in later and smoothed down by unnatural means. Rey pressed her fingertips to the smooth rock. It was cool under her touch, but it felt alive somehow.

She stepped back and fell into line with Leia. "What do I do?" she asked after a long time of silence.

Leia was not a Master. She had her brother's training and her many decades of experience under her belt, but that didn't make her a Master. She was, however, from a very powerful line of Force users, which made things make sense to her more quickly. "I think we both need to open it."

"Open it," Rey repeated. Of course. It was a door. "The planet, the Force, protected this place. Of course there would be more than just one defense."

Leia nodded and extinguished her saber, using the faint light from the walls to guide them. Together, they stepped forward and, with hands hovering over the stone but not touching it, they reached out with the Force. They could feel each other, bold and bright, and they could feel what was behind the stone as well. Slowly, very slowly, as sweat broke out on their foreheads and under their arms and the use of the Force felt like a physical weight, the stone moved. It slid out of the wall and the women moved back, allowing it to roll along the cavern wall, leaving just enough space for Rey to walk through.

Once the stone was moved, they released the hold on it. It left them both breathing heavily and Leia leaned against a slowly growing stalagmite on the ground.

"Are you okay?" Rey asked. She wouldn't be able to forgive herself if something happened to Leia in her quest for this crystal.

Leia waved her hand. "Yes. I'll stay here and catch my breath. Finding a crystal is a private experience. Go on. I'll be waiting for you."

It felt like the right thing to do, so Rey nodded solemnly and slipped through the crack in the wall. It was very dark, with the dullest of light from the other cavern slipping through. She felt as if the air around her was holding its breath.

She walked twenty paces before she stopped. Stretching out with the Force, she closed her eyes and opened herself to the space, searching for the crystal that had called out to her. Soon, the air seemed to sing without words and Rey opened her eyes.

She was in the Crystal Forest. The entire space was alive with crystal. From towering shards larger than herself to small dustings along the ground. They glowed with a clear, bright light, giving her a pathway.

She wasn't tempted to go for any other crystals. This was a sacred place. She moved forward, guided by the Force. And then, there it was. A crystal, the perfect size for a lightsaber hilt, nestled amongst others of smaller and larger size. But Rey knew which was hers.

A smile lit up her face and she reached forward. Before her fingers touched the crystal, she felt a new presence and barely had time to twist and duck as a bright crimson blade swiped through the air. Stumbling back, Rey felt her hands cut on sharp crystal shards.

The person looming over her was...her. Only her skin was pallid and her eyes were shining yellow and red, _tainted_. Dressed in black, her double-bladed lightsaber, made from what looked like the rest of Rey's staff, crackled an unsteady red.

Rey's mouth fell open, unable to speak.

The other her, the Dark Rey, loomed and then bowed down, more shadow than woman, and smiled. There was no warmth, only threat and power in the expression. "Don't be afraid of who you could become," Dark Rey said.

"Is that who you are?" she finally found her voice.

Dark Rey tilted her head and placed one side of her saber down as if it were just a normal staff. The ground crackled and spit and bubbled under the pressure and heat. "I'm in control, Rey. I can do whatever I want. Take whatever I want. No one has ownership over me."

Images, memories of her life on Jakku came back. Barely enough food to survive. Unkar Plutt paying her less food portions than others. The trauma of her parents abandonment making it impossible for her to leave.

She got angry, and then she remembered where she was, why she was here. She took a few, shaky breaths, trying to get ahead of herself. "I already have control," she said, her voice strong. "I know who you are." She pushed herself to her feet then, stepping close. She could feel the unstable power from the red saber blade stretching toward the cavern roof.

Dark Rey's smile turned into a grin that was more snarl than amusement.

"You're my fear. And I won't let you control me."

Dark Rey stayed very still before she rushed at Rey. She had no crystal in her hilt, but she grabbed for the staff across her back, taking it in hand. Dark Rey's saberstaff slammed against her staff, the two crossed over her chest like a big metal X. Dark Rey leaned close, her voice calm and deadly.

"If you don't, Ben will die."

Images assaulted Rey's mind, dark battles, smoking ships remains, Ben on the ground with his blood on her hands. For a moment, Rey caved, feeling the pain and panic, choking on it like when she connected to her parents at their deaths. She felt herself slipping and Dark Rey pushed on her, forcing her back to arch, muscles aching. But then she remembered Luke's lessons of balance, of embracing the darkness within and creating support around it so that one could deal with it in a healthy matter.

Closing her eyes, Rey reached out, through the caverns, across the jungle, and found Ben in the _Falcon_. He was always a beacon of light and she needed to feel that light and love more than ever in that moment. Calm and peace flowed over her body and she opened her eyes.

"I don't believe you," Rey said, pushing back against the dark version of herself. "The future is always changing and I won't let fear control me."

Dark Rey snarled and hissed and swiped toward Rey, who was otherwise defenseless against a lightsaber blade. She had no time to scrabble for the blaster at her side.

* * *

When Rey emerged from the space between the door and the wall, she collapsed through it, landing on her hands and knees as if she'd just been shoved through. She looked like she'd been through a fight, but she was mostly unharmed, crystal clutched in her scratched up hand.

Leia helped her to her feet in the dark before lighting her saber again for more light. Rey was momentarily wildeyed, but once she saw Leia, her body relaxed. Leia didn't say anything, understanding. Facing one's darkest side wasn't really something you could put into words. And Rey could barely comprehend most of what had happened to try.

Instead, Rey held up the crystal and smiled, a small, tired smile.

"Come on then," Leia said, jerking her head toward a secondary tunnel she'd found while Rey was gone.

Rey followed quietly. "When did you find this?" she asked.

"You were in there for hours, Rey," Leia told her gently. "It's a good thing I remembered to pack nutrient bars. I knew we couldn't easily leave the way we came. I think this is an easier path."

The tunnel was easier to walk through. It only got small enough for them to hunch over and crouch through, but finally they arrived at another, smaller cavern, this one more or less natural with a small water spring and a steep but wide entrance. Using the Force, they pulled themselves to the light.

Rey's eyes hurt against the sun and she closed them until they stopped seeing spots. She slowly opened them and found herself in the lush green forest of Christophsis under the late-day sun. Life flowed all around her and she felt rejuvenated.

"Now's a good a time as any," Leia said, nodding to the crystal still clutched in Rey's hand.

Remembering what she'd come here for, Rey quickly walked over to a nearby stump of a naturally fallen tree, overcovered with moss and lichen. She took her lightsaber hilt and laid it down and the crystal next to it.

Concentrating, she pulled it apart piece by piece, until she found the place in the middle, empty and ready. The crystal fit inside snuggly, like it was made to fit. A smile appeared on her face as the lightsaber came together again.

This step of her training was now complete. There was a satisfaction to it that was more than just having a weapon. She felt as if she'd grown.

Taking the weapon in her hand, she could feel the power of the crystal within. It still called to her, waiting for her to use it. Glancing up at Leia, who gave her an encouraging nod and smile, Rey twisted the end of the saber's ignition with her thumb.

A blade, strong and steady, sprang from the end. It was a sunlit yellow.

"Yellow?" Rey said, surprised. All of the sabers she'd seen thus far were blue or green. She had a moment of worry that this had something to do with everyone saying she was _special_ and strong in the Force.

"The crystal reacts to its owner's principals," Leia said, reminding her. Luke had told her this before, but she hadn't thought much about it. "Blue and green are the most common, but there's plenty of records of many different colors."

Rey looked at the blade and she didn't feel disappointed. She didn't feel giddy either, but she felt as if she were ready for the future.

"Besides, it suits you," Leia said, bumping into Rey's thoughts again. The older woman looked exhausted. Rey extinguished her lightsaber and helped Leia back to the _Falcon_. Han went to Leia's side immediately, even after she told him she was fine. He didn't listen and they bickered the whole way into the ship.

Rey stayed outside, enjoying having her feet on solid ground. She now understood the pride that Finn had when she first met him. Getting your lightsaber was a battle in itself. She didn't know how it was for those who got their crystals from Yavin 4's ruins with Luke at their side, but she doubted the Force made exceptions.

She was lost in her thinking and contemplation when Ben touched her shoulder, letting her know he was there.

"How'd it go?" he asked. The worry on his face had smoothed out the moment he'd seen Rey and Leia show up on the ship's scans and they were in one piece with normal body stats. Knowing 2-1B would look after his mother, his worry was gone.

Rey turned to him, not seeing him at first, but quickly focusing on his face. She smiled, exhausted. "I have a working lightsaber now," she said, breathing a little heavily.

"Just like you wanted." He smiled back.

"Yeah," she said, face falling a little. Without another word, she pushed herself to her toes and hugged him around his neck tightly. She closed her eyes and breathed in his scent, feeling his life force, strong and unwavering.

He hugged her tightly back, sensing something was a little off but not knowing what it was. He knew she'd tell him eventually if it was anything big. But maybe it was just her needing a hug after whatever ordeal she went through.

After a long couple minutes, they parted and walked into the _Falcon_ , hand in hand.

* * *

Hosnian Prime was as Rey remembered, though a little bit chillier. It was starting to edge toward a new season. She stayed under mountains of blankets in the mornings for an extra thirty minutes. Ben spent most of the next two days talking with Leia. They didn't move to any _official_ Senate offices, consulting those with the same general principals of Senator Organa via holo and trying to make contact with the Wren's.

It wasn't easy, what with the distance between their locations and the general lack of security.

Late into the night, Ben and Leia sat in the small office in the suite, door cracked open. Rey had cleared the main room of couches and seats and was carefully trying out her new lightsaber blade. It was nearly weightless beyond the hilt when held in her hand, but it resisted movement. But she dove into the Force, moved her body along with the flow of the blade.

On the holo projector sat Sacha Wren, face bare and haggard. Beside her stood Sabine Wren, friend of multiple Jedi, protector of innocents and an old friend of Leia's. Well, friend was a strong word. Acquaintance was more accurate. Leia had met Sabine many times during her young, rebellion days when she went on _diplomatic missions_ which were a front for rebellion work.

"It's no simple distinction," Sabine was saying, looking nearly as tired as her niece. "The Death Watch...their name is misleading. And Mandalore isn't the utopia that my family, and many others, were forced out of. After Maul's ruling...it's not great."

Han had long since fallen asleep in one of the corners of the room, his light snoring filling the space. Leia rubbed her hands over her face. "I can't guarantee any physical support," she said. "The New Republic has no standing army. We've all seen what happens if we try to do that. But this is crossing lines beyond a simple dispute."

"Insulting and stealing from us is nothing new," Sacha said, running her hands through her short hair. "And we can only speak for those clans on our side. The recent assassination attempts on my father and other Mandalorian leaders is a tipping point."

"If there is to be a war, whether it be a small one or one that sends waves through the galaxy, I want to be able to say we did whatever we could to prevent it," Leia said.

Ben moved around the desk to lean down behind his mother, his image showing up on the Wrens' side of the holoimage. "I'll talk with Luke. Maybe he'll have something to say about it. It may be a couple hours before I'm able to get back to it."

"We're prepared to fight, but the winds have calmed for now," Sabine replied.

After a few more exchanges, words of caution and promises, the transmission ended. Ben sighed and leaned back against the desk, rubbing his tired face. His eyes cued into the sound of Rey in the other room, the gentle swish and slice of a lightsaber through open air.

"I think we may need to see to this personally," Leia said after she was quiet for a few minutes.

Ben crossed his arms. "And do what?"

Leia got to her feet and wrapped her hands around one of his forearms. "We can send you there as an emissary. It will show support but also not rope the Senate into anything they're unwilling to give. There will be a hearing and a vote in a few days, but by the sounds of it, Sabine and Sacha and their family may not last that long."

Ben sighed. "You're right. I'm still going to call Luke and see if he has any extra advice."

She nodded, smiling at him soft and moving her hands to cradle his head gently. "I love you, Ben. It's been so nice having you around. Despite the circumstances."

Ben smiled, all crooked teeth and crows feet. "It has been nice," he agreed, hugging her. "Love you too, Mom."

A few minutes later, Han had been half-woken and walked to bed by Leia. Once they said goodnight to Rey and closed the bedroom door, the new Jedi poked her head into the office. Ben was slumped down in his mother's chair, the small encrypted family holopuck on top of the desk, sending out a request for Luke's all the way on Yavin 4.

"How'd it go?" Rey asked, her lightsaber nothing more than metal hanging off her hip. She walked over to him and meant to walk around the chair and lean over him from behind, but he caught her before she could, pulling her into his lap. She yelped quietly, momentarily worried the chair wouldn't hold. It did. He buried his face in her neck and chest and she laced her fingers through his hair. "That bad, huh?"

"Frustrating," he mumbled. He stayed there, holding onto her quietly for a good long minute before he pulled his face away and looked at her in the dim light of the room. It didn't take more than a moment, a second in time for him to think about Rey and how she seemed to fit so perfectly into his life, or about how he genuinely felt like a better person around her. Not that he ever thought he was ever all that bad of a person, but there was just something about her that made him want to rise to the occasion of being his best self. And sometimes, in stolen moments with the right light and mindset, his heart would squeeze and he'd find himself loving her even more than he thought possible. Like now.

Just as he opened his mouth, the holo flickered to life.

"Am I interrupting something?" Luke asked.

Ben twisted the chair a bit and Rey dropped her arms though she didn't move from her spot on Ben's thigh. "Nope," Ben half-lied, scooting closer to the desk. "We just got done with a call to the Wren clan. I wanted to get your opinion."

Rey quickly caught up, following along with the conversation as Ben explained the recent conversation and the developments between the Mandalorians and the Neimodians. It wasn't just on Mandalore either, but on other planets where Mandalorians had settled, like with the Wrens on Krownest. Luke had a lot of questions and eventually came to a decision.

"I think Leia's right. You should go there as a mediator, Ben. And Rey," he added, turning to his former—and future—student. "And I'd like to send others from here on Yavin."

"Really?" Ben asked.

"Yes. Rey, since you left and have started on your own path, I hope you won't take offense when I say what I'm about to say."

"I'm too tired to get angry," Rey said sleepily. She had been feeling fine until she stopped training; then all of her energy had depleted. She'd been resisting yawning for this entire conversation.

"As current students of mine, I would like to send along Finn and Jannah as a show of support of myself and of the small, but powerful force that the Jedi are," Luke finished. "This is a personal matter, but I know that there will need to be stronger hands involved to fully suppress a war. The New Republic has no army, and while the Jedi are not an army, they are a show of force."

Rey chuckled at the pun. "I think that's a great idea. I'm grateful for your training and I feel like I will be back one day, but I definitely feel like I'm not quite worthy of the Jedi title."

"There's no need to be worthy of it," Luke said. "It's not a title won like in a war. It's one given and earned with patience and training. And while _Jedi_ has connections to great warriors of the past, that's not how I want the word to be associated with in the future. You should call yourself a Jedi proudly."

"Thank you, Master," Rey replied, dipping her head a little.

"We'll probably be leaving for Knowest tomorrow midday here," Ben said. "Do you think Finn and Jannah can reach the planet on one of your ships?"

"Absolutely. Finn's got his own ship and he hates being idle. And Jannah has shown a lot of progress as a peacemaker. I've...decided to try to stop protecting her as her father and support her as her Master. She'll be grateful for the mission."

Rey wished her friend could hear the words. Late into the night in their shared hut, Jannah had often bemoaned being the daughter of Luke Skywalker and how it not only made others believe she was super powerful or just taking advantage of his experience, but it made it hard for her to be her own person. She was always shadowed by the Skywalker name and her fathers'—both Luke and Lando—insistence on coddling her.

"Okay," Ben said, reaching toward the puck. "Thank you, Uncle. We'll be in touch."

Luke smiled at them both. "May the Force be with you."

The room was even darker and quieter without the holograph image. Ben sat back and Rey moved with him, tucking her arms against his chest. The droids were all on their charging stations and the suite was silent.

"If we're leaving tomorrow we should get some sleep," Rey said. The words were barely out of her mouth when Ben picked her up, an arm under her legs and around her back. She squeaked. "What are you doing?"

"Going to bed."

Rey stifled a laugh and allowed herself to be carried through the suite to the spare room. Ben didn't even try to make a show of not sharing a room with her here on Hosnian Prime. Within minutes they were comfortable and under the covers, too exhausted to stay awake much longer beyond a goodnight kiss and settling down in a cuddle.

* * *

R2D2 stayed in the cockpit as the _Falcon_ rocketed through hyperspace toward Knowest. Leia had insisted they take the droid and while Han seemed reluctant to let the ship out of his sight, he didn't offer up another ship for them to take.

It would take a few hours before they got to the planet and Rey and Ben found some creative ways to get rid of their pent up stress and worry over the whole situation. After an hour or two of kissing and moaning and with bodies freshly cleaned but still flushed, they sat in the captain's bunk.

Luke's words had made Rey _think_. What was her future now? She had Jedi training, yes. She had her own life experience as a scavenger, her skill as a pilot, and her shared life with Ben Solo. But where did that leave her? What was she going to do?

"Explain it to me," Rey said. She was sitting on the bed in nothing but one of Ben's shirts, the neck wide and falling off one shoulder. Her freckles stood out on her cheeks and she leaned back against the padded side of the bunk, her legs curled under her. "I want to know everything."

Ben rubbed his neck and leaned off the bed to gather a few things from the desk just off to the side before settling back next to her. "We do everything but slaves," he said to start. "Transport beings, creatures, or cargo. And if anyone's selling, we'll buy it after a haggle and then inflate the prices and sell them where they're needed; weapons, food and sometimes materials vital to certain lifestyles. For enough money we'll gather items or materials. But it's always as fair as you get with criminals and scum."

"How do you know where to find things?" Rey had spent her life stripping old Empire and Republic ships for parts; her world had been tiny, and while she had almost gotten to running ships for Unkar Plutt, he always made excuses for not allowing her off planet.

"The HoloNet," he said, clicking one of the devices and holding it in his hand. It was the same one she'd used to scour the galaxy for Jedi and information about Luke Skywalker. "This one is rigged to have access to the Black Market, where we find a good number of deals. You can just skim through and if anything looks promising, you pick it." He skipped through a few pages of finds before stopping. "Like this one."

Rey narrowed her eyes as the words written in Basic. "I can't read that," she said. "There's not much use for reading on Jakku."

Ben hadn't ever thought of it that way, nor did he find issue with it. "That's fine. Like you found out before, the HoloNet has auditory recordings for all of the posts." He paused, eyes sliding from the blue projection to her face, bathed in the light. "I could teach you, if you wanted. I know you can speak a few languages."

"Roughly," Rey said with a shrug. She spoke Basic fluently, and she knew enough languages native to Jakku to hold her own against anyone she came into contact with. Simple conversations and instructions and, of course, cursing and swearing. "I wouldn't mind learning to read Basic. It would probably help."

"It can't hurt," Ben agreed before going back to his instruction. "So one way to find clients, HoloNet. Another way is word of mouth. I inherited a lot of my dad's contacts so it's a lot easier for us to slip in before another rival crew catches wind of a good score. Some people contact us with good jobs and we take it. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it ends up uh...not so easy."

"That's why you carry blasters."

"Exactly."

Rey smirked a little. "Wonder what someone would think if they saw my lightsaber during an argument…"

"They'd definitely be surprised."

Rey allowed herself a moment or two to think about it proudly before getting back to business. "Any other ways?"

"Well, there's the old fashioned way: find the local cantina or place where the mid-class criminals congregate and just keep your ears open. Shoot out the competition and get the job. We do less of that now. And by we, I mean Dad. If he's around, we tend to have legit scores. I sometimes like going to the cantinas."

"For the thrill of it," Rey said, reading him perfectly.

"Exactly. Sometimes you bump into mercs or bounty hunters and that can get a bit intense unless you're good at talking yourself out of things."

"Are you good at it?"

"Not as good as Han Solo but I can hold my own."

"Hmmm." Rey snuggled a bit closer to him. "And you would want a partner who wasn't an eight foot fall Wookiee?"

"Is Chewie eight feet tall?" Ben frowned and tilted his head up as if in deep thought. It lasted only a few moments before he threw off the seriousness and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "Of course. I think we'd be a force to be reckoned with."

"I think I'd be good at it," Rey affirmed. She could see it. It wasn't exactly the dream she'd had as a child of where her life may end up, but that was irrelevant now. She had gotten off Jakku and everything had changed. She could have never thought of any of this on her own. "If you'll have me."

Ben smiled. "I don't want anyone else," he said before smothering her with a kiss. Rey's light laughter filled the room as she found herself with her back to the mattress, Ben's hands half-tickling her sides, pecking her face with a volley of ridiculous kisses until she couldn't catch her breath.

* * *

Knowest was the coldest place Rey had ever been. She thought Ben was joking when he made sure she dressed in socks, long trousers, a long sleeved shirt under her quilted vest, and a thick jacket over it all. He even put a hat on her head that was similar to his own.

She was thankful for the layers when they walked two feet from the _Falcon_ 's boarding ramp and she was bombarded with a cold wind that cut through her. She dug her hands into her jacket pockets, hunched her shoulders and walked toward the building with Ben.

It was thankfully warmer inside, with a fire crackling under the grand mantel in the foyer. The protocol droid who answered the door alerted his masters of their arrival. It took twenty minutes of introductions and shuffling through the house for Ben and Rey to find themselves in a warm room faced with the leaders of the Wren household: siblings Tristan and Sabine, and Sacha.

"Please eat," Tristan told them. The display of food was modest, but Rey thought it was rude not to accept something from a host so she grabbed a few things with cold fingers and ate as Ben made pleasantries with the Wrens.

A few minutes into it, the transmitter in Ben's pocket beeped. He pulled it open and opened the channel. "Hello?"

"Hey, cousin," Jannah's voice came through. "Mind letting us in? It's freezing out here."

Five minutes later, the two Jedi were in the room. Finn looked less cold than Jannah and Rey. When Rey pointed it out, he frowned. "You know you can ward off temperatures easily for a little while with the Force right?"

They hadn't known it but since it was unimportant, the lesson was tabled. Jannah and Finn were brought up to speed. And more details were given that hadn't been revealed over holo.

"It's not just tainted beskar," Tristan said. In person, his hair was greying, but his eyes were still fierce and sharp. "Sabine told you about bounty hunters. They've come here to Knowest, but to other Mandalorian settlements as well. And...there's more."

Unable to continue, Sacha stepped in for her father. "The Neimodians have been selling slaves. There are still some planets that adhere to a lifestyle where slavery is normal. We have always been against slavery, but there was nothing we could do about it in the past. There were too many planets who supported it. But…" She paused and glanced at her aunt, who had her arms crossed, a pinched look on her face. "If you know anything about the Mandalorians, know this. We accept all into our fold. Younglings who are abandoned and alone are taken in and given life and purpose."

Rey instantly felt a new loyalty to the Mandalorians. As an orphan herself, she wondered how different her life would have been if she had been given a family from the beginning instead of being left so alone.

"The Neimodians, for whatever purpose, to anger us or otherwise, have started targeting our villages and settlements where we raise our foundlings."

Ben clenched his fist, resting on the table. "And selling them as slaves?"

All three Mandalorians nodded, unable to speak. "That is why this conflict is growing so rapidly," Sabine said, stepping forward. Her armor was brightly decorated with multiple colors.

"I don't understand," Jannah said, frowning. "What do the Neimodians want with a bunch of children? Why are they targeting Mandalorians?"

"We don't know," Tristan shook his head. "They haven't responded to any communications with us."

"That must be the next step," Finn said. "A meeting face to face or even through holo could help us figure out why this is happening and how we can stop it."

"That sounds all well and good," Sacha said, her voice hard, "but we've already lost fifty children. We need to fight back now or who knows what our future will hold. We won't even _have_ a future."

Rey met Ben's eyes. She had no ideas here. She wasn't familiar with big battles, but she knew that if there were children involved, she was going to do whatever she needed to. And she would stand with the Mandalorians against the Neimodians.

"The cowards don't even fight with their own kind. They hire out to any species that will be bought with credits," Sacha continued, obviously disgusted with the thought. "To. Steal. Children."

The words hung in the air. No one within the walls of the room wanted to stand idle. What Finn said was what Luke would say and all who knew the Master knew it to be true. Communication was key, but this was getting to a point where action was going to speak louder than words.

"We'll try to contact the Neimodians," Ben said, sitting forward. "Just to cover all our options. If they refuse to communicate, we'll take it from there."

"You'll fight with us?" Tristan asked.

"I will," Rey said without hesitation.

"You know I will," Ben nodded.

Jannah elbowed Finn in the ribs. He didn't budge. "We'll support you," Jannah said finally. She caught Rey's eye and smiled a small smile. Both of them had missed each other. Rey just wished they were seeing each other under different circumstances.

"I can consult with my mother," Ben added. "She is trying to bring this to a forefront vote from the Senate. So if we can hold off—"

Another member of the household interrupted, rushing into the room breathing heavily as if they'd just run here. They also wore Mandalorian armor, helmet and all. "Sorry to interrupt," they said.

"What is it?" Tristan asked, getting to his feet.

"Ships, sir. A number of bounty hunter ships have landed across the forest."

"We have no children here," Sabine said, frowning.

Tristan turned and met the eyes of each Jedi and Ben. "Looks like you may get that fight whether you like it or not."

* * *

With limited speeders, Rey shared with Ben and Jannah with Finn. The Wren household and those loyal to them almost all had jetpacks. It was a long trek through the forest, with trees mostly barren except resilient red needles at the very tops of the trunks. Rey had her saber at her side, Ben's spare blaster in a holster but her staff hadn't been practical to pull over her coat. She didn't feel naked without it, but she wished they'd had time to grab it before leaving.

She tightened her arms around Ben's middle and squinted behind the borrowed goggles over her eyes as wind and ice flakes bombarded her face. Just when she thought that her face would freeze off—even with Finn's two minute lesson on how to warm yourself with the Force—the Mandalorians landed and the speeders came to a halt.

They were on the edge of an icy forest. Beyond was flat and icy and if you squinted, you could see the shapes of a number of ships.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Ben said as he pulled his goggles off.

Rey kissed his cheek with frozen lips and slid off the speeder. He followed and they congregated with Sabine, Tristan and Sacha.

"Could this be a distraction?" Finn asked.

"Maybe. We haven't attacked the Neimodians as far as I know. But the Death Watch...they could have started something we haven't heard of yet. One Mandalorian is the same as another according to most people. It's a horrible misconception," Sabine said, her voice vented through her helmet.

"Can you sense how many there are?" Tristan asked, eyes on the Jedi.

Both Rey and Finn turned to Jannah, whose aptitude for sensing others within the Force was unparalleled. Rey was really only good with simple creatures and finding Ben. Finn was more intune with the physical aspects.

Nodding, Jannah closed her eyes and stretched out with the Force. After a few tense moments, she opened her eyes. "It's hard to tell but there's more than just a couple per ship."

Between the Jedi, Ben, the Wren leaders and their followers, they only had about twenty fighters.

"Will this be enough?" Tristan asked.

Jannah shrugged. "I'm not war general. But if you're as good as the legends say…"

Sacha nodded once. "And if you're as good as the legends say," she replied, smirking under her helmet. She turned to the troops then and raised her voice. "We're going to have to take them by surprise. Spread out, groups of two or three."

Jannah and Finn both split off to team up with two Mandalorians and they spread out through the trees. The Wren leaders did the same, leaving two Mandalorians with Ben and Rey in the nearest valley. Ben and Rey both shed their bulky jackets, the anticipation of a battle warming their blood.

Rey had never been in a fight like this before. Ben kept close to her as they made their way to a secluded area to hide. The two Mandalorians, Gara and Pey, used their jetpacks to settle high in the trees on the thickest branches they could find.

"You have the Force," Ben told Rey as they found space under the roots of an underturned tree. The ground was cold and hard under their feet as they crouched. "Just use it. Trust it."

Rey frowned, her brow scrunching together. "But you don't have the Force. How do you win in battles without it?"

"I wouldn't say I've ever been in a _battle_ before," he confessed, which just made the worry rise on her face. He lifted a gloved hand and rested it against her face. "Don't worry. I'm a fairly decent shot."

"That's not funny," she said, though she laughed nervously. He smiled in return and leaned forward to rest his forehead against her. No words were exchanged but it calmed her nonetheless.

They stayed crouched in the cold for what felt like hours before any sounds of battle could be heard. Blaster bolts, yells of command. Rey tensed, tightening her hold on her lightsaber. The sounds were far off but started to grow toward them.

As the sounds got close enough to call them into battle, Rey stopped Ben from leaving their spot, reaching out and grabbing his sleeve. "I love you," she said, allowing her fear to grow the tiniest bit. She had to let it appear, solid and real, before she could release it and focus on the battle.

Despite the nearing blaster fire, Ben leaned in and kissed her. "I love you."

A blaster bolt hit the ground a few feet away, spewing up dark soil and ice. The battle had begun.

Gara and Pey assaulted the bounty hunters from above, catching their attention. The hunters didn't expect Ben's blaster fire, and they definitely weren't expecting Rey's entrance. She flew through the air and landed amid a handful of them. Jannah was right. There were many more hunters than one would have thought. How much were they getting paid to have so many lowlifes teaming up together?

With no time to spare, Rey ignited her lightsaber, which shocked the hunters just enough for her to get a head start. The sounds of battle filled her ears but she did as she was taught and she let the Force guide her, leaving her anticipating moves a millisecond before they occurred. Ben _was_ fairly decent with his blaster, and took on a weaponless hunter with his bare hands.

Gara took out two hunters, stunned or dead Rey couldn't tell such was her focus on her own battle, before she was shot down with a stunning bolt. As Rey went up against two Trandoshan hunters, she felt a sharp sting to her right arm as one of them cut her with a long ranged staff. Gritting her teeth, she spun out with her saber, which could slice through weapons as easily as flesh and bones.

One of them dropped and Rey glanced up at the encouragement of the Force. Even more hunters were coming toward them. Where were they coming from?

Not being able to stop and think about it, Rey turned her attention back to the Trandoshan, who had backed off and was firing at her. She deflected the bolts and one of them caught him in the gut. The reptilian hunter went down.

Ben was trying to make his way over to Gara, but Pey got there first, scooping her up and jetpacking away. Ben felt a momentary anger at them, but Pey returned moments later once the wounded soldier was out of harms way. The distraction had allowed a hunter to get close to Ben. Favoring melee kills, the tall Zabrak with orange skin swung at Ben, who narrowing ducked and tried to scrabble far enough away to shoot at the horned alien.

He did, but when he pulled the trigger, the bolt power core was empty. A curse slipped from Ben's lips just as a Kyuza disk hat flew through the air. There was nothing he could do about it as the deadly flying weapon curved toward him. He tried to move out of the way, but the sharp edge cut through his layers of clothes and deep into his abdomen.

The Zabrak went down with a shot from Pey and then Ben's eyes slipped out of focus.

Rey _felt_ Ben's shock and pain and saw him fall in slow motion across the battle.

"NO!" she screamed, pain and anger and anguish flooding through her. The Force responded to her emotions, powerful and dangerous. A wave of power seemed to explode from her, stripping needles from trees and flattening them back against the earth. Bodies of the enemy were slammed with the energy and hit trees and the ground with resounding force, breaking bones and knocking them out or worse.

Rey had eyes only for Ben and she raced toward him, her face already cold with tears slipping down her cheeks. Bright crimson blood stained his white shirt and seeped through his black vest and his breathing was short and shallow. She skidded and fell to her knees, scraping them through her pants but not even feeling her own injuries.

"Ben," she whispered, taking in his injuries, horrified at the severity of them. His name fell off her lips like a prayer as she leaned over him and took his head gently in her hands.

For a moment the vision from the Crystal Forest came into her mind: the future that the Dark version of herself had revealed. This felt eerily familiar, but she was too distraught to dwell on it, pulling herself to the present.

Ben's eyes fluttered and focused on her face and the corner of his mouth twisted up as he tried to smile. "Rey," he breathed out, lifting a shaking, bloody hand to her face. He barely had the strength and she caught his fingers in hers, pressing them to her cheek and willing the cold of his skin away.

"Stay with me," she said, eyes blurred with tears, throat growing thick. " _Please_."

His hand fell slack and fell from her grip and his eyes closed.

"No," Rey whispered, eyes wide and terrified. "Ben…" Resisting a sob that threatened to rack her entire body, she closed her eyes and breathed—shakily and unsteady—with reached out with the Force. The usual bright light of Ben was fading, almost completely snuffed out. But he was still there. Forcing herself calm, Rey knew what she had to do.

Even though half of her wanted to lie down and cry and never move, she moved, shuffling around until she could pull Ben's head and shoulders onto her legs. She laid one hand over his forehead and another over his heart, barely beating.

She reached out through the Force to him, something she'd never done before. She could always feel him but she'd never thought to reveal herself _to him_ this way.

"Be with me," she said, lips barely moving. "Stay with me. Be with me. Stay with me." The words turned into a mantra and she felt the Force moving through her to Ben. She felt her own life growing tired, but she was determined and pulled life from the trees around her. It was enough.

The glow of Ben's life grew and gained strength. She could feel his chest moving with deep, full breaths and his muscles and organs knitting back together from the fatal wound.

The Force pushed her until her reservoir of power was depleted, leaving her gasping in the real world. The wind swirled cold around them but Ben was alive. She didn't allow herself to celebrate just yet. He wasn't completely healed and would need much longer and more attention to do that.

The next thing Rey had to figure out was how they would get out of here. Lifting her head, she saw the damage she caused. Trees flattened, prone bodies scattered. Nothing moved with life in the clearing she'd created. She could still hear the rest of the battle on the other side of the ridge and feared what would happen if it bled over to this side. She would protect Ben with her life, but she knew that he needed medical attention. She was no doctor, no healer, and she only hoped that what she had done with the Force didn't do more damage than good.

Just as she was making plans to find a ship, the air swirled and whirled with the appearance of a ship. Squinting to the sky, Rey saw the _Falcon_ dropping down near them in the cleared space she'd created. The ramp was down and Finn was standing on the end, gripping the hydraulic.

"Rey!" he yelled over the sound of the ship.

Rey waved her arm above her head. "Finn!"

The ship hovered and Finn jumped to the ground. He rushed over, surveying the damage but saying nothing. He saw the blood soaked clothes and ground around Ben and his expression darkened.

"Is he?"

"He's alive," Rey said, "but barely. Help me get him to the _Falcon_."

Between the two of them they got the smuggler off the ground and into the ship. The ramp closed behind them and Finn yelled down to the cockpit, "Get us out of here, Jannah!"

Jannah's reply echoed down the hallway as they moved Ben to the nearest bunk. As the ship rattled and shuddered, Finn left Rey to slide down to the turret to help in their escape. Rey silently cursed the Solo's and their lack of droids on their ship. If there was a med droid, she could rest easier, but she had to do this on her own. R2 rolled over and beeped, but Rey told him to go away.

First, she lifted Ben's shirt to check that she had actually sealed his wound. It wasn't pretty, but he was no longer bleeding out. She rested her hand gently over the pink skin and tried to feel _inside_ to make sure he wasn't just bleeding behind the newly made scar. She was no healer but she knew that would be bad. The healing she'd done on his internal organs were weak, but holding.

Next, she made sure his breathing was even and then...well there was nothing more she could do. His face was relaxed without tension so she could only hope that it meant he wasn't in pain.

She ran her fingers through his hair and gently rested her forehead against his, closing her eyes and feeling his life force for any changes. It was only half as bright as usual, but it was holding steady.

Eventually her own exhaustion got a hold of her and she pulled a stool over, sitting right next to him and taking his larger hand between her two smaller ones. "You promised," she said softly as the ship steadied and her ears popped in the tell-tale sign of entering hyperspace. "You promised you'd never leave me."

Tears fell from her eyes, even though he was no longer on the verge of death.

Some time she must have laid his arm across his torso and fallen asleep, because a few hours later, Jannah found her with her head resting on her crossed arms on the edge of the bunk, somehow keeping herself on the stool at the same time. Jannah could feel her need for rest, but she also knew Rey would want to know what was going on.

Walking over, she put a hand gently on her shoulder and shook her awake.

Rey jerked awake, confused and startled. It took her a moment to catch her bearings. She spotted Jannah, who took a seat next to her and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"I don't know what's wrong," Rey said, her voice thick and throaty from sleep. Jannah rushed to get her something to drink. Jannah stood and gently held her hand over Ben's forehead, feeling within the Force.

"You saved him," Jannah told her. "How did you know how to do that? That's a very dangerous thing to do."

Rey shook her head, taking his hand again, unwilling to let him go. "I just knew," she confessed. She rubbed her free hand over her face. "What happened with the battle?"

"We got most of them taken care of with the _Falcon_ 's turret," Jannah said, sitting again. "I sensed Ben get hurt and with the hunters nearly finished, Finn and I got back to the ship."

"Thank you," Rey said, unable to think of anything else.

"I called Leia," Jannah continued. "She knows we're coming. She felt what happened."

"And the Mandalorians?" Rey asked. She had promised to fight with them and then left in the middle of a battle.

"Sacha already called us. She thanked us for the help and said they'd be waiting to hear from Leia about next steps. The attack was an act of war, according to Mandalorian culture I think."

Rey rubbed her temple. "I don't think I'm cut out for war."

"It's complicated," Jannah agreed.

Finn appeared a few minutes later. He gave Rey a small smile and nod. "We're almost at Hosnian Prime."

An hour later, thanks to clearance by Leia herself, they were at her personal suite, Ben on a hovering stretcher, Rey refusing to let go of him. Her hands were covered in dried blood and the smear across her face had darkened. Her own wound on her arm had bled into her shirtsleeve but she'd hardly noticed.

"Leia," Rey said, chin trembling as they got close. The older woman took a moment to check on her son, pushing hair from his eyes and kissing his forehead before letting 2-1B to take him to her personal medical room.

Standing alone and feeling helpless, Rey let a couple fat tears escape onto her cheeks as Leia surveyed her. She looked like a mess, bloody, ragged and exhausted.

"I don't know why he won't wake up," Rey said as Leia, ignoring the blood, took her hands.

"We'll figure it out," Leia told her. "Thanks to you, Rey, Ben's alive. You saved him and brought him home."

Leia hugged her and Rey clung to the older woman as the loud voice of Han Solo bounced around in the suite. Rey closed her eyes and squeezed Leia tightly before letting go.

"Come on now," Leia said. "Let's get you cleaned up and looked at. Some food and some sleep."

"How can you be so calm?" Rey asked, her hands shaking as she walked into the suite. Jannah was talking with Han and Finn was standing awkwardly as C-3PO made his way over.

"I can feel that you stabilized Ben with your...healing. Which is remarkable. I don't think I've ever heard of anything so advanced being used through the Force before. Luke will want to know about it."

Rey let Leia speak and lead her into the guest room. She even let Leia strip her down to her underclothes. Her arm was starting to sting and grow sore, but it had naturally stopped bleeding during the trip. Rey was told to wash up and she did so mechanically. The warm water slowly worked its way through the cold that clung to her bones.

Water swirled dark with blood around her feet. She scrubbed herself clean and stepped out. Leia had left clean clothes to change into, which she also did mechanically. Soft loose shirt and trousers. Rey walked out in bare feet, hair dripping wet and allowed 2-1B to put a bacta patch on her arm.

She, Jannah and Finn were served food and drink and they sat on the floor in the living area around the short table, avoiding the sofas as if they design. They were all quiet. Leia and Han disappeared into the medical room with Ben.

C-3PO showed Finn to the guest room to rest.

"Will you stay with me?" Rey asked Jannah, voice small.

With no need for an explanation, Jannah joined Rey in the biggest guest room. The bed was large and Rey fell asleep immediately. Jannah settled down, allowing the kernel of worry for her cousin to keep her up for another hour before exhaustion from the battle got to her and she fell asleep as well.

* * *

The next three days were the longest in Rey's life. She was repeatedly kept away from Ben for his health and her own sanity. She wanted to stay by his side, but Jannah and Finn both pulled her away. They meditated in the gardens attached to the building and trained in the formations of multiple Jedi fighting techniques, sans lightsabers so it was more of a yoga exercise. Rey was grateful for the distraction, and she was able to put aside some of her fear and guilt as she felt Ben's life force slowly get stronger and brighter.

That's not to say she didn't have her moments. She stumbled into the kitchen on the second night to find Han Solo sitting there in the dark, a drink long forgotten clasped in his hand.

"I'm so sorry," Rey had said before nearly bursting into tears and startling him out of his thoughts.

Han had patted her shoulder and told her not to worry. "Ben's strong. And Leia told me that if it wasn't for you…" The old smuggler paused, a shine of tears in his own eyes. "Thank you, Rey." He squeezed her shoulder then, the closest to a hug she'd gotten from the man, before he went and disappeared into the medical room.

2-1B wouldn't tell her anything, even when she asked, sitting at Ben's side, looking at him as he lay there. He looked like he should have woken up right away, but that wasn't the case. He was still sleeping and she wondered if maybe she missed something when she healed him.

Just as she was spiraling into those dark thoughts, Jannah pulled her out for more meditation.

On the third morning and fourth day there, Rey woke early, Jannah lightly snoring at her side. The morning felt calm and peaceful, the sunlight just peeking through the high window in the room. Getting to her feet, Rey made her way to the refresher and stood there motionless on the cool tile for a few minutes before she realized that she felt serenity rather than guilt and frustration.

And that could only mean one thing:

"Ben."

Nearly slipping on the tiles, she ran as quietly as she could through the suite to the medical room. The door took its sweet time sliding open and she rushed inside. Ben lay out on the medical bed and he looked unchanged, but Rey reached out with the Force and felt that something _had_ changed.

Stepping forward, holding her breath, scared to breathe in case she jinxed the moment, she hovered by the side of the bed.

Slowly, as if waking from a normal amount of sleep, Ben's eyes squeezed shut against the bright lights in the room and his body slowly woke up, fingers twitching, and finally his eyes opened. The first thing he saw was Rey, which made sense because the last thing he remembered seeing was her face.

"Ben," she breathed out, eyes swimming with tears.

He couldn't really speak on account of how dry his throat was, but his eyes spoke for him. The relief at seeing her, the love blooming in his chest. He remembered vaguely the battle, the few moments in time before he was injured, blood everywhere, the cold attacking his wound. Had he...died?

"Ben," Rey said again, tentatively reaching out toward him. This could very well be a dream and she didn't want to break the spell and wake up if it was.

He struggled, sore and stiff, to sit up, leaning on one arm to keep himself upright. He reached out his other hand, gently touching her sleeve. It was a real enough touch for her face to break and she collapsed against him, arms tightly around his torso, face buried in his shirt. He hugged her with his one arm and rested his face against her hair and they stayed that way for a long time.

* * *

_**EPILOGUE** _

The entire planet was lush and green, flowers blooming on every plant that had seedpods and from every bulb in the ground. On the far side of the continent, klicks away from the capital city of Chandrila, there was a bustle of activity in the usual calm and quiet settlement that was oftentimes rented out by locals for such occasions.

There was food cooking in one cabin, the guests were split between two other cabins, and an entire ensemble of flowers and a delicately braided flower-arch was set in the grassy field near the buildings.

Rey was in one of those cabins and Ben in another. Leia had left Rey just minutes before to find Ben, leaving Rey in the cabin with Jannah and the other female students from Luke's school, including the human Voe, the part-human Tionne and Rodian Esbo. Since leaving to get her lightsaber, she had gone back to the temple for two weeks and reconnected with the other students and went through a lot of meditation with Luke, who was interested in her ability to heal with the Force, something he'd only read vague mentions of in the oldest of ancient texts.

"Is your hair supposed to look like that?" Esbo asked as Rey struggled into her outfit. Jannah put down the drink in her hand and went to help.

"Yes," Rey grunted as she tried getting into the jumpsuit sort of outfit. It should have been easy but Rey was a trousers and shirt person and rarely wore anything else. Jannah looked at ease in her long dress and, thanks to years of dressing up with her father Lando, was able to help Rey into the outfit and secure the back button at the nape of her neck. There was a cutout of fabric, leaving a peek of her back exposed, but it would soon be covered with the long cape.

Voe, Tionne and Esbo were similarly dressed in long multi-colored gowns, nothing too flashy, but enough for the formal occasion.

"I think she looks great," Tionne said, having fully embraced the height of vanity she could have at such an event. She had on borrowed jewelry around her neck and on her fingers and hanging from her ears.

"It's an Alderaan tradition," Rey explained. Her hair was pulled back in a similar fashion from the last time that Leia had braided it, though there were special braids in there specifically about today. Rey smoothed her hands over the fabric. It was a soft green like new tree buds, with a short stiff collar and not a single seam to be seen.

"But isn't Ben from Chandrila?" Voe pointed out as she brought over the second part of Rey's outfit, holding the cape high so it didn't drag on the ground.

"Yes," Jannah said, helping Voe set the voluminous cloak on Rey's shoulders. "But Leia is from Alderaan."

They continued to talk as Rey slipped her arms through the appropriate slits in the side. The whole thing settled and fell around her like a dress and was lighter than it appeared to be when it was hanging on the wall for the past few hours.

"And why are you wearing this whole ensemble?" Voe asked, finally turning their attention back to Rey as she swished around the room in the outfit. Now that she was in it, it was surprisingly comfortable.

"This," she lifted the cape a little, "is supposed to be very similar to Alderaan fashion and the rest is...well I feel better wearing pants so this was my idea."

Jannah started working around Rey as she wandered the cabin, putting on accessories: a brown belt around her middle of soft material detailed with bright stitching, two thin golden bracelets around her right wrist and the final piece: a delicate circlet made of gold and silver twisted together, barely visible unless you got close. It was more than Rey had ever worn in her life and more expensive than anything she'd ever touched, but the circlet and bracelets were a gift from Leia that she had gladly taken.

"There," Jannah said, finally pleased. Rey wore barely any makeup—just a little bit around the eyes—and she looked beautiful. "How do you feel?"

Rey took another lap around the cabin. "Like myself but...fancy." She grinned.

"Good," Jannah replied with her own smile. Music from outside leaked through the open window and Jannah and the others got to their feet, all wearing soft, comfortable shoes. "That's our cue."

Voe, Tionne and Esbo headed outside toward the flowering archway where other guests had already gathered. Jannah stayed behind to walk Rey outside. Rey stepped out of the cabin in bare feet, which had been an offhand comment late one evening that turned into a reality. It was nice to feel the cool, fresh grass under her feet and the cloak was just the perfect length as to not get dragged through the dirt.

Jannah took her around the side of the cabin and stood, holding Rey's hands between her own. "You know what to do?"

Rey nodded, though her stomach was filled with butterflies. "Sure, just walk, right? How hard could that be?"

"I can always get Leia. I don't really know if it's traditional, but she'll be here in an instant if you need her to be."

Rey was not getting cold feet or anything, but this was the most traditional and standard thing she'd ever done in her life. After six months of smuggling, she hadn't been this clean and put together since that night on Chandrila before the Mandalorian incident. And it wasn't just looking clean and fancy that was making her anxious. She knew everyone here of course, but it was still more people focused on her than she'd ever had in her life. That was kind of the point, but it still was something she was unused to.

Without waiting for Rey to respond, Jannah darted away, her pink dress fluttering back as she did. Minutes later, Leia appeared, wearing a soft blue outfit and hair properly twisted back. She gave Rey a warm smile and the young woman felt instantly better. Jannah stayed for just a moment before leaving them to join the small crowd standing in the grassy field.

Leia slipped her hand around Rey's elbow and they walked around the side of the cabin. The music stayed peaceful and light, delightful even, and Rey took a few calming breaths just as the crowd came into view. They were all standing, Chewbacca the tallest among them, turning to her since this day was about her. And Ben.

 _Ben_ , who she laid eyes on for the first time that day, standing in front of Luke near the flower arch. He was dressed in black, looking just as clean and crisp as her. No worn knees patches or buttons out of place. His hair was pulled back away from his face by braids along the top of his head that had Leia's handiwork written all over them. Literally.

He beamed when he saw her. Rey couldn't help herself and smiled back. It was easier to just focus on him rather than everyone else, even though she was happy they were all here. Familiar faces that had been good and kind to her.

The walk wasn't very long and Leia let her go with a small squeeze. Rey stood in front of Ben and tried very hard not to bounce on her bare heels.

Luke took a step forward and leaned in close to Rey. "You look lovely," he said quietly.

"Thank you," she said back, her cheeks flushing.

Straightening his back, Luke raised his voice and addressed the crowd. "We've been asked here today to celebrate Rey and Ben and their commitment to starting a life together. I've been asked here because...well, let's be honest, it's not like I can do very much with all my students here."

A ripple of laughter from Luke's students in the standing crowd. Even Rey laughed a little.

"I've known Ben his entire life and I've never met a more genuine and good person. I'm glad to call him my nephew." Ben blushed a bit at a compliment, all of his emotions heightened today. "And I've known Rey for just a few months but I like to think I know what kind of person she is: strong, independent, and perfect for keeping Ben in line." Another small ripple of amusement.

Luke motioned toward them and Rey and Ben held hands. It felt significantly different than every other time they'd held hands. This was the start of something new. Rey looked up at Ben, into those soulful eyes and knew she'd made the right choice. Ben knew it too, from the moment he found her in that AT-AT on Jakku; she was _the one_.

"It's a great pleasure for me to join you, Ben Organa Skywalker Solo and Rey of Jakku, in marriage. May your future be bright and full of love and life. And may the Force be with you."

Without hesitation, Rey pushed herself onto her toes and steadied herself with Ben's shoulders to kiss him. The standing crowd clapped and the newlyweds parted, holding hands. C-3PO walked over with the binding rings and they were slid onto the appropriate fingers, single bands of silvery material infused with diamond so they sparkled under Chandrila's sun.

Rey allowed herself to breathe and laugh as flower petals were tossed at them and everyone swarmed around to hug and shake hands. They both felt the absence of each other's hands in their own as they were separated, but everyone was also moving toward the long table set up on the grass for a meal so they ended up next to each other soon enough.

Just as they got to the feast, Han Solo pushed through the crowd and hugged his son and hugged Rey. An actual, genuine hug to welcome her to the family. Rey's happiness was radiant.

Sitting at the head of the table, Rey and Ben shared a bench seat and everyone ate food and spoke loudly and for the first time in her entire life, Rey felt as if she had an actual family. She smiled and blinked away happy tears. Ben noticed and lifted her hand to gently kiss the back of it. She thanked him with a small kiss.

It was strange to think that that was _it_. Just a gathering of people she liked and loved and cared about and who cared about her in return, a few words spoken by an elder, and she was _married_. She was married! To Ben Solo! She had a true family connection now. She even had a family name.

And she quite liked how it sounded in her head:

Rey Solo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, thank you for reading all of this! I really put my heart and soul into this fic and I hope y'all like it. I also apologize about the wedding, as I'm not a wedding person but I feel like it would be what they both want. And they're definitely going to start a family, but I just didn't write it in since this fic was already getting so long! So feel free to use your imaginations :)
> 
> Scenes/ideas that didn’t make the cut:  
> -Rey asking the 2-1B med droid on Chandrila (after the first time she and Ben sleep together) for some sorta birth control because she wants a family but not Right Now and C-3PO interrupts and she almost rips him apart when he starts talking about contraceptives in multiple species/cultures  
> -Rey was originally gonna have a saberstaff but the logistics of creating one got too complicated (one piece? Two pieces? One crystal? Two crystals? I was getting really stressed) so I gave her a single saber instead.  
> -A full-blown flashback between Ben and Sacha and his stupid smuggling run that ended up in their fight, now you just gotta use your imagination  
> -A whole thing where Poe Dameron is Leia’s personal pilot and Rose is part of his flight crew as mechanic and they meet Finn and Jannah while they’re all on Hosnian Prime (this was cut because this fic was already way too long and plotty lol)

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! I tried to make little nods toward things and lines in the movies while also creating my whole own world. Some of my favorites include:
> 
> -Rey not taking Ben's hand at first and looking at it like it's a slug lol  
> -Rey never learning to read so she has to listen to the HoloNet news stories instead  
> -Ben knowing droid language (? is it a language? whatever!)  
> -Rey's naivety and the fact that she doesn't know what certain things are because she's from a DESERT planet  
> -Ben wearing small braids in his hair with connection to Alderaan's history  
> -SOULMATES even if Ben isn't a Force user


End file.
